There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link: https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
I'm waiting for the day when Magnus will have a profile on the New Yorker, but this is nice, for the time being :-)
Aubrey
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 2:34 PM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hi,
thanks Andrew for bringing Magnus' words into the mailinglist-discussion. I would like to balance the direct critic made by Magnus with an attempt to differentiate the matter at hand a bit.
The obvious attempt to frame "the community" as conservative and not open to changes is a clever narrative, but it is wrong in its generalizing conclusion.
The narrative which is trying to tell a story of a progressive, future-aware and tech-oriented Foundation and a "nothing has to change"-community is wrong, no matter how often it is told.
There is not only one way to the future of Wikipedia, but many. There is not only one way to implement tech innovation into the Wikiprojects.
But tech innovation should support the factual kernel of the movement idea - which is to build an encylopedia written for humans by humans. Not primarily for databases, not primarily for crawlers, no primarily for a "Knowledge Engine" (what ever that supposed to be in the end).
Tech innovations which try to replace quality human editing are not a good idea. Tech innovations which try to reduce the encylopedia to a question/answer-machine are maybe fashionable and trendy, but do not fit to the idea of an encylopedia. They could be an addition, but not if they endanger the kernel.
I was an outspoken supporter of the idea of Wikidata. But I now realize that this great idea is used to work against the human editors of the Wikipedia. This isn't the way Wikidata was sold to the public in the beginning. And it is surely not the way it is welcome in Wikipedia.
The idea of connecting the informations in Wikipedia with other sources of free knowledge to give people the chance to build a variety of better tools based upon it is a great idea - the way it is done is not good.
The idea of creating tech tools that relieve human editors from reiterating work and along the way implementing structured data into the workflows of Wikipedia (and other projects) is a great idea - the way it is done is not good and is pointing in a wrong direction.
I'm a big fan of new users and while in many different circumstances introducing new people to Wikipedia I'm trying to think of procedures how this can be done in more efficient, inviting and understanding ways.
I agree with Magnus when it comes to new users. More new users (specialists and generalists) are a critical and challenging endeavor. I don't agree with Magnus when it comes to "new technologies" which are in the medium term changing the encylopedia in a Q/A-machine.
I believe in people, I don't believe in a Wiki-version of HAL 9000.
Best regards, Jens Best
2016-01-18 14:34 GMT+01:00 Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, You accuse Wikidata of something. That is ok. However, it helps when it is clear what problems you see.
When Wikidata was introduced, it improved quality of interwiki links in a meaningful way. Most Wikipedians do not care about such links so it was an easy and obvious improvement. Similar improvements are possible as I wrote earlier when Wikidata technology is used for Wiki links, red links and disambiguation pages. They do not impact editing in any way but will increase the quality of Wikipedia in a measurable way.
The big problem with what you write is that you do not make clear what the problem is. Without such substantiation it is FUD. Please enlighten us why Wikidata is going about it in the wrong way. That will make this a meaningful discussion. Thanks, GerardM
On 18 January 2016 at 15:17, Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
Hi,
thanks Andrew for bringing Magnus' words into the mailinglist-discussion. I would like to balance the direct critic made by Magnus with an attempt to differentiate the matter at hand a bit.
The obvious attempt to frame "the community" as conservative and not open to changes is a clever narrative, but it is wrong in its generalizing conclusion.
The narrative which is trying to tell a story of a progressive, future-aware and tech-oriented Foundation and a "nothing has to change"-community is wrong, no matter how often it is told.
There is not only one way to the future of Wikipedia, but many. There is not only one way to implement tech innovation into the Wikiprojects.
But tech innovation should support the factual kernel of the movement idea
- which is to build an encylopedia written for humans by humans.
Not primarily for databases, not primarily for crawlers, no primarily for a "Knowledge Engine" (what ever that supposed to be in the end).
Tech innovations which try to replace quality human editing are not a good idea. Tech innovations which try to reduce the encylopedia to a question/answer-machine are maybe fashionable and trendy, but do not fit to the idea of an encylopedia. They could be an addition, but not if they endanger the kernel.
I was an outspoken supporter of the idea of Wikidata. But I now realize that this great idea is used to work against the human editors of the Wikipedia. This isn't the way Wikidata was sold to the public in the beginning. And it is surely not the way it is welcome in Wikipedia.
The idea of connecting the informations in Wikipedia with other sources of free knowledge to give people the chance to build a variety of better tools based upon it is a great idea - the way it is done is not good.
The idea of creating tech tools that relieve human editors from reiterating work and along the way implementing structured data into the workflows of Wikipedia (and other projects) is a great idea - the way it is done is not good and is pointing in a wrong direction.
I'm a big fan of new users and while in many different circumstances introducing new people to Wikipedia I'm trying to think of procedures how this can be done in more efficient, inviting and understanding ways.
I agree with Magnus when it comes to new users. More new users (specialists and generalists) are a critical and challenging endeavor. I don't agree with Magnus when it comes to "new technologies" which are in the medium term changing the encylopedia in a Q/A-machine.
I believe in people, I don't believe in a Wiki-version of HAL 9000.
Best regards, Jens Best
2016-01-18 14:34 GMT+01:00 Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog
today.
It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus
has
been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the
Visual
Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only
affect
Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try
new
things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, Magnus developed functionality to replace the "red links". Arguably replacing wikilinks with Wikidata in the background will improve Wikipedia (in any language) substantially.
It is just not considered. Thanks, GerardM
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-lowest-hanging-fruit-fr...
On 18 January 2016 at 14:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Thank you for flagging this for us, Andrew. I have been unsuccessful in accessing this page and have been told by others who tried to do so that they were also getting various error messages. I will try again later using different technology - the problem may be that the blog doesn't come up well certain types of phones. Personally, I have always been a bit heartbroken that I missed out on the chance for a "Magnus Manske has a Posse" t-shirt a while back; his work has genuinely changed the course of our project on more than one occasion, and his reputation is solidly earned.
With that in mind - that I've not yet got the full context of Magnus's comments, but that I believe anything Magnus says is worth listening to and considering - I'm a bit concerned about any suggestion that "the community" rejected Visual Editor because it was "new".
The English Wikipedia community rejected it because it was really bad software that was causing so much damage to the project that even editors whose focus was on content writing and improvement wound up wasting their time fixing the errors inserted into the text by VisualEditor. We went from a somewhat-difficult-to-use text editor (wikitext) as the default to a not-even-beta-level default editor that could not carry out even basic editing functions and was actively damaging existing content - without even a way for editors to select a "no VE" preference, which had to be written after implementation. While it was available to IP editors, the community wound up reverting almost 100% of their edits because the VE-generated problems were so severe. This was not a failure of the community to accept change. This was the failure of the WMF to understand what a minimal viable product should be. The poorly thought out implementation of VisualEditor has caused a huge amount of damage to the reputation of the software - remember, the community had been asking for something along this line as far back as 2003, so it wasn't that we didn't want this type of editing interface - and it also caused an entirely predictable backlash from the community of 2013. Remember, this was not the community of 2003 that understood almost everyone involved in software creation was a volunteer too, and thus would tolerate less refined software releases. The community of 2013 (quite correctly, I think) expected much higher quality work from paid staff. Bluntly put, not even when almost all of the software was being written by volunteers did we see such a problematic "upgrade".
The Visual Editor of January 2016 bears little relationship to that which was released on July 1, 2013 - it is dramatically better, easier to use, and has some really great features that even experienced editors will find useful. I hope more experienced users will give it another try.
I often find it ironic that the great concern about attracting new editors and thus creating VisualEditor is then immediately dumped to the bottom of the drawer when it comes to Wikidata. First we'll make it easy for them to edit. Then we'll include a whole pile of data that they can't edit -or at least can't edit on the website they logged into. They're pretty opposite ideas, but of course that's considered luddite thinking.
Risker/Anne
On 18 January 2016 at 08:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/ _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Although "Tech innovations which try to replace quality human editing are not a good idea." Tech innovations which can adequately replace the need for quality human editing when that editing is not sufficiently available can be a very good idea, So can tech innovations which try can assist low quality human editing to become of higher quality. So can tech innovations which merely replicate what some people can do at a high quality, but most people cannot. I saw little need to replace the wikitext editor because I have worked enough in html for that to be as natural as using a keyboard, but it is easy to forget the needs of those who have only worked through WSIWYG interfaces. I find the talk page system quite intuitive, but I'm aware that many others don't share this feeling.
The difficulty is in differentiating these situations, and I haver seen here as in many situation elsewhere that the people who develop technology are willing to use it even when imperfect and badly documented, and even pride in their ability to do so. This was certainly true in my own profession, where we librarians never understood why most of the public found navigating our manual and early automated system so difficult.
I share in detail Risker's feeling about the visual editor in particular: I use it now, and the key factor which improved it for me was the recent addition of the ability to go back and forth between the two editing modes without losing work, so I can use the strengths of each of the as needed. (But I am aware of the pressure to release *something* to the public after the very slow development; that original slow development was perhaps the root problem.)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 11:44 AM, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you for flagging this for us, Andrew. I have been unsuccessful in accessing this page and have been told by others who tried to do so that they were also getting various error messages. I will try again later using different technology - the problem may be that the blog doesn't come up well certain types of phones. Personally, I have always been a bit heartbroken that I missed out on the chance for a "Magnus Manske has a Posse" t-shirt a while back; his work has genuinely changed the course of our project on more than one occasion, and his reputation is solidly earned.
With that in mind - that I've not yet got the full context of Magnus's comments, but that I believe anything Magnus says is worth listening to and considering - I'm a bit concerned about any suggestion that "the community" rejected Visual Editor because it was "new".
The English Wikipedia community rejected it because it was really bad software that was causing so much damage to the project that even editors whose focus was on content writing and improvement wound up wasting their time fixing the errors inserted into the text by VisualEditor. We went from a somewhat-difficult-to-use text editor (wikitext) as the default to a not-even-beta-level default editor that could not carry out even basic editing functions and was actively damaging existing content - without even a way for editors to select a "no VE" preference, which had to be written after implementation. While it was available to IP editors, the community wound up reverting almost 100% of their edits because the VE-generated problems were so severe. This was not a failure of the community to accept change. This was the failure of the WMF to understand what a minimal viable product should be. The poorly thought out implementation of VisualEditor has caused a huge amount of damage to the reputation of the software - remember, the community had been asking for something along this line as far back as 2003, so it wasn't that we didn't want this type of editing interface - and it also caused an entirely predictable backlash from the community of 2013. Remember, this was not the community of 2003 that understood almost everyone involved in software creation was a volunteer too, and thus would tolerate less refined software releases. The community of 2013 (quite correctly, I think) expected much higher quality work from paid staff. Bluntly put, not even when almost all of the software was being written by volunteers did we see such a problematic "upgrade".
The Visual Editor of January 2016 bears little relationship to that which was released on July 1, 2013 - it is dramatically better, easier to use, and has some really great features that even experienced editors will find useful. I hope more experienced users will give it another try.
I often find it ironic that the great concern about attracting new editors and thus creating VisualEditor is then immediately dumped to the bottom of the drawer when it comes to Wikidata. First we'll make it easy for them to edit. Then we'll include a whole pile of data that they can't edit -or at least can't edit on the website they logged into. They're pretty opposite ideas, but of course that's considered luddite thinking.
Risker/Anne
On 18 January 2016 at 08:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog
today.
It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus
has
been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the
Visual
Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only
affect
Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try
new
things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, When people complain that Wikidata has a real awful user interface, I wholeheartedly agree. It is really bad, so much so that I only use it to edit. I am a big fan of Magnus's Reasonator. It turns data into information. It works well, it works in many languages. I search in Reasonator, I use Reasonator for disambiguation. It is superior.
When you say that the current Wikidata has a bad user interface, do not excuse yourself; it is awful. For me it indicates that Wikidata is underfunded. However, there is a general rule that throwing more developers at a problem does not necessarily make it better. Given the challenges that the Wikidata development face, I do not complain. I respect the effort involved, I truly respect Lydia and her team.
When Reasonator is to be used by the whole of the Wikimedia movement, I know it will fail. It works well up to a point, this point can be much improved but in my appreciation it is not trivial at all to scale it up. In the mean time people who use it like myself are blessed with a user interface that is wonderful. Thanks, GerardM
On 18 January 2016 at 17:44, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you for flagging this for us, Andrew. I have been unsuccessful in accessing this page and have been told by others who tried to do so that they were also getting various error messages. I will try again later using different technology - the problem may be that the blog doesn't come up well certain types of phones. Personally, I have always been a bit heartbroken that I missed out on the chance for a "Magnus Manske has a Posse" t-shirt a while back; his work has genuinely changed the course of our project on more than one occasion, and his reputation is solidly earned.
With that in mind - that I've not yet got the full context of Magnus's comments, but that I believe anything Magnus says is worth listening to and considering - I'm a bit concerned about any suggestion that "the community" rejected Visual Editor because it was "new".
The English Wikipedia community rejected it because it was really bad software that was causing so much damage to the project that even editors whose focus was on content writing and improvement wound up wasting their time fixing the errors inserted into the text by VisualEditor. We went from a somewhat-difficult-to-use text editor (wikitext) as the default to a not-even-beta-level default editor that could not carry out even basic editing functions and was actively damaging existing content - without even a way for editors to select a "no VE" preference, which had to be written after implementation. While it was available to IP editors, the community wound up reverting almost 100% of their edits because the VE-generated problems were so severe. This was not a failure of the community to accept change. This was the failure of the WMF to understand what a minimal viable product should be. The poorly thought out implementation of VisualEditor has caused a huge amount of damage to the reputation of the software - remember, the community had been asking for something along this line as far back as 2003, so it wasn't that we didn't want this type of editing interface - and it also caused an entirely predictable backlash from the community of 2013. Remember, this was not the community of 2003 that understood almost everyone involved in software creation was a volunteer too, and thus would tolerate less refined software releases. The community of 2013 (quite correctly, I think) expected much higher quality work from paid staff. Bluntly put, not even when almost all of the software was being written by volunteers did we see such a problematic "upgrade".
The Visual Editor of January 2016 bears little relationship to that which was released on July 1, 2013 - it is dramatically better, easier to use, and has some really great features that even experienced editors will find useful. I hope more experienced users will give it another try.
I often find it ironic that the great concern about attracting new editors and thus creating VisualEditor is then immediately dumped to the bottom of the drawer when it comes to Wikidata. First we'll make it easy for them to edit. Then we'll include a whole pile of data that they can't edit -or at least can't edit on the website they logged into. They're pretty opposite ideas, but of course that's considered luddite thinking.
Risker/Anne
On 18 January 2016 at 08:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog
today.
It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus
has
been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the
Visual
Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only
affect
Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try
new
things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, As much as you like Reasonator, you should acknowledge that the Wikibase GUI has to be kept as general as possible to be scalable and flexible enough for everyone to use.
Il 18/01/2016 19:52, Gerard Meijssen ha scritto:
Hoi, When people complain that Wikidata has a real awful user interface, I wholeheartedly agree. It is really bad, so much so that I only use it to edit. I am a big fan of Magnus's Reasonator. It turns data into information. It works well, it works in many languages. I search in Reasonator, I use Reasonator for disambiguation. It is superior.
When you say that the current Wikidata has a bad user interface, do not excuse yourself; it is awful. For me it indicates that Wikidata is underfunded. However, there is a general rule that throwing more developers at a problem does not necessarily make it better. Given the challenges that the Wikidata development face, I do not complain. I respect the effort involved, I truly respect Lydia and her team.
When Reasonator is to be used by the whole of the Wikimedia movement, I know it will fail. It works well up to a point, this point can be much improved but in my appreciation it is not trivial at all to scale it up. In the mean time people who use it like myself are blessed with a user interface that is wonderful. Thanks, GerardM
On 18 January 2016 at 17:44, Risker risker.wp@gmail.com wrote:
Thank you for flagging this for us, Andrew. I have been unsuccessful in accessing this page and have been told by others who tried to do so that they were also getting various error messages. I will try again later using different technology - the problem may be that the blog doesn't come up well certain types of phones. Personally, I have always been a bit heartbroken that I missed out on the chance for a "Magnus Manske has a Posse" t-shirt a while back; his work has genuinely changed the course of our project on more than one occasion, and his reputation is solidly earned.
With that in mind - that I've not yet got the full context of Magnus's comments, but that I believe anything Magnus says is worth listening to and considering - I'm a bit concerned about any suggestion that "the community" rejected Visual Editor because it was "new".
The English Wikipedia community rejected it because it was really bad software that was causing so much damage to the project that even editors whose focus was on content writing and improvement wound up wasting their time fixing the errors inserted into the text by VisualEditor. We went from a somewhat-difficult-to-use text editor (wikitext) as the default to a not-even-beta-level default editor that could not carry out even basic editing functions and was actively damaging existing content - without even a way for editors to select a "no VE" preference, which had to be written after implementation. While it was available to IP editors, the community wound up reverting almost 100% of their edits because the VE-generated problems were so severe. This was not a failure of the community to accept change. This was the failure of the WMF to understand what a minimal viable product should be. The poorly thought out implementation of VisualEditor has caused a huge amount of damage to the reputation of the software - remember, the community had been asking for something along this line as far back as 2003, so it wasn't that we didn't want this type of editing interface - and it also caused an entirely predictable backlash from the community of 2013. Remember, this was not the community of 2003 that understood almost everyone involved in software creation was a volunteer too, and thus would tolerate less refined software releases. The community of 2013 (quite correctly, I think) expected much higher quality work from paid staff. Bluntly put, not even when almost all of the software was being written by volunteers did we see such a problematic "upgrade".
The Visual Editor of January 2016 bears little relationship to that which was released on July 1, 2013 - it is dramatically better, easier to use, and has some really great features that even experienced editors will find useful. I hope more experienced users will give it another try.
I often find it ironic that the great concern about attracting new editors and thus creating VisualEditor is then immediately dumped to the bottom of the drawer when it comes to Wikidata. First we'll make it easy for them to edit. Then we'll include a whole pile of data that they can't edit -or at least can't edit on the website they logged into. They're pretty opposite ideas, but of course that's considered luddite thinking.
Risker/Anne
On 18 January 2016 at 08:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog
today.
It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus
has
been since 2001.
Selected quotes: "...we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the
Visual
Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change... all websites, including Wikipedia must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only
affect
Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem... if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away... we are in an ideal position to try
new
things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.”
Link:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
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After the assertion "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change," I would suggest a very large "citation needed" tag.
Pine
I cannot speak for Magnus, but there’s a distinction that needs to be made:
Writing, “… all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change” is not maligning all editors who complain.
It simply says that those who resist innovation because it is a change from the status quo, and without solid reasoning, should reconsider. The detailed analysis of Jonathan Cardy and Risker criticizing VE’s suboptimal 2013 launch are well-informed and legit. But many, unfortunately, don’t apply such high standards for analysis.
-Andrew
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
After the assertion "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change," I would suggest a very large "citation needed" tag.
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OK, long thread, I'll try to answer in one here...
* I've been writing code for over thirty years now, so I'm the first to say that technology in not "the" answer to social or structural issues. It can, however, mitigate some of those issues, or at least show new ways of dealing with them
* New things are not necessarily good just because they are new. What seems to be an improvement, especially for a technical mind, can be a huge step backwards for the "general population". On the other hand, projects like the Visual Editor can make work easier for many people, but few of them will realize what a daunting undertaking such a project is. The complexity of getting this right is staggering. Expectations of getting it all perfect, all feature-complete, on the initial release, are unrealistic to say the least. And many of the details can not be tested between a few developers; things need to be tested under real-world conditions, and testing means they can break. Feedback about problems with a software release are actually quite welcome, but condemning an entire product forever because the first version didn't do everything 100% right is just plain stupid. If Wikipedia had been judged by such standards in 2001, there would be no Wikipedia today, period. Technology improves all the time, be it Visual Editor, Media Viewer, or Wikidata; but in the community, there is a sense of "it was bad, it must be still bad", and I have a feeling that this is extended to new projects by default these days.
* In summary, what I criticize is that few people ask "how can we make this better"; all they ask is "how can we get rid of it". This attitude prevents the development of just about any new approach. If the result of a long, thorough analysis is "it's bad, and it can't possibly be made better", /then/ is the time to scrap it, but no sooner.
* Of course, "the community" is an ill-defined construct to begin with. When I use that phrase above, I do mean a small but prominent subgroup in that demographic, mostly "old hands" of good editors, often with a "fan club" of people repeating the opinions of the former on talk pages, without really investigating on their own. After all, they are good editors, so they must know what they are talking about, right?
* As I tried to say in the interview, I do understand such a conservative approach all to well. We worked hard for Wikipedia to get where it is now, and with trolls, on the left, vandals on the right, and half-done tech experiments in front, retreating into the safety of the castle seems like a good choice. And sometimes it is. But while we can defend the castle comfortably for some years to come, we will never grow beyond its walls. I think we are already seeing the first fallout from this stagnation, in terms of dropping page views (not to mention editors). If people stop coming to a Wikipedia with 5 million articles, 10 million articles would not make much difference by themselves; more content is good, but it will not turn this supertanker around on its own. We do have some time left to change things, without undue haste, but we won't have forever.
* Just to make sure, I am NOT saying to throw away all the things that have proven to work for us; I'm just saying we shouldn't restrict us to them.
* As for this "Wikidata is killing Wikipedia" sentiment - bullshit. (I would like to be more eloquent here, but for once, this is the perfect word.) Wikipedia and Wikidata are two very different beasts, though they do have an overlap. And that overlap should be used on Wikipedia, where it can help, even in the gigantic English Wikipedia, which covers but a third of Wikidata items. Transcluded data in infoboxes; automatically generated lists; a data source for timelines. Those are functions that will improve Wikipedia, and will help especially the hundreds of smaller language editions that are just getting towards critical mass. And there, automatically generated descriptions can help get to that mass, until someone writes an actual article in that language.
* So Google is using Wikidata in their search results? Good! In case you have forgotten, our mission is not to have a nice article about your pet topic, or have humans write articles that are little better than bot-generated stubs, or have your name in ten thousand article histories; the mission is the dissemination of free knowledge. And the more third parties use the knowledge we assemble, even (or especially!) if it is that other 800 pound gorilla on the web, the better we fulfil that mission.
I hope this clarifies my POV, and doesn't offend too many people ;-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 7:10 PM Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
I cannot speak for Magnus, but there’s a distinction that needs to be made:
Writing, “… all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change” is not maligning all editors who complain.
It simply says that those who resist innovation because it is a change from the status quo, and without solid reasoning, should reconsider. The detailed analysis of Jonathan Cardy and Risker criticizing VE’s suboptimal 2013 launch are well-informed and legit. But many, unfortunately, don’t apply such high standards for analysis.
-Andrew
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 12:13 PM, Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com wrote:
After the assertion "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to
Wikidata
transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change," I would suggest a very large "citation needed" tag.
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On 18 January 2016 at 20:33, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
- New things are not necessarily good just because they are new. What seems
to be an improvement, especially for a technical mind, can be a huge step backwards for the "general population". On the other hand, projects like the Visual Editor can make work easier for many people, but few of them will realize what a daunting undertaking such a project is. The complexity
As a huge VE advocate, I was quite disconcerted how hard the WMF was trying to force through what was clearly an early beta in need of real-world testing as if it were a production-ready product; I think this was the problem and the reason for the backlash. VE *now* has had a couple of years' development in a real-world environment and is really quite excellent (and the only sensible way to edit tables). But the problem here was not fear of change or fear of technology, but rejecting technology that was being forced on editors when it was really obviously not up to the job as yet.
- d.
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly enthusiastic. I would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first. That said, problems are to be expected, and a new Wikitext parser-and-back, plus new interface, were bound to produce some broken edits.
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 9:46 PM David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 18 January 2016 at 20:33, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
- New things are not necessarily good just because they are new. What
seems
to be an improvement, especially for a technical mind, can be a huge step backwards for the "general population". On the other hand, projects like the Visual Editor can make work easier for many people, but few of them will realize what a daunting undertaking such a project is. The
complexity
As a huge VE advocate, I was quite disconcerted how hard the WMF was trying to force through what was clearly an early beta in need of real-world testing as if it were a production-ready product; I think this was the problem and the reason for the backlash. VE *now* has had a couple of years' development in a real-world environment and is really quite excellent (and the only sensible way to edit tables). But the problem here was not fear of change or fear of technology, but rejecting technology that was being forced on editors when it was really obviously not up to the job as yet.
- d.
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On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly enthusiastic. I would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We do not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we can present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a success for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly enthusiastic. I would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the concurrent thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least over at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them or ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't distinguish them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF staffers who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and your contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We do not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we can present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a success for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this thread. I have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do well remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite up to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen time and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the concurrent thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least over at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them or ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't distinguish them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF staffers who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and your contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I'm not sure where you get your impressions, Magnus. But when I discuss ideas for a better implementation of Wikidata into Wikipedia to improve automatisation of repetitive editing procedures, including the implementation of the possible use of structured data, I rarely hear "It Is Not Made Here" or "It's Bad Because Its New".
When it comes to analyse the problems with Wikidata it isn't only about possible early-lifecycle issues(which can be fix), but about the blind spot when it comes to develope working social processes which keep everybody (especially the editors) in the picture.
Community involvement (especially consultations) are often seem to be organized only out of necessity. They not in the middle of the decision-making process. Nobody said that doing things the way they are done in a crowdsourced, community-driven process are easy, but this is no excuse for any Foundation or other similiar entity to set up an intransparent, precendents creating process where community becomes accessories.
The whole way the Knowledge Engine process was implemented, the whole still intransparent incident of kicking a highly valued community-selected person out of the WMF board are clear signals that some people already decided about the future of Wikimedia and now staging a folksy broad consultation circus to create the impression of transparent community involvement. - Deciding about the color of the car if you would instead prefer to talk about the vehicle is the illusion of community-based decisionmaking.
We need a lot of change in the social procedures at the level of really needed ground work which is important for changing the Wikiprojects to make them work for the future. To reflect and to work on the development of these social procedures would be the most precious work to be done by the Foundation. Instead the Foundation dreams of techbubble-driven, humanless wonderland full of free floading informations which magically forms into knowledge when it somehow hits a human being.
I like the idea of Wikidata. I like the idea of combining Encylopedia with structured data to enable understanding and easy re-use at the reader-side of Wikiprojects. So many things are imaginable there when the culture of conveying the needed individual and social skills are done well. Tech is only tool to these processes. Tools are important, but not the purpose when it comes to disseminate knowledge.
regards, Jens
2016-01-19 15:56 GMT+01:00 Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this thread. I have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do well remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite up to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen time and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, Jens, so you talk about improving Wikipedia. What I hear is basic negativity. What is it in what you say that will actually make a positive difference. Have you considered how Wikidata already made a big quality improvement and do you agree that by taking the next step from interwiki links and move to links and red links Wikidata would easily improve any Wikipedia actually any Wikimedia project. It does not need sources, it does not need anything but the realisation that it will remove a whole class of errors that can be as much as 20% in some articles.
Really Jens, let us forget about adding stumbling blocks and focus on quality. Improving quality in Wikipedia because we can. Thanks, GerardM
On 19 January 2016 at 16:58, Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure where you get your impressions, Magnus. But when I discuss ideas for a better implementation of Wikidata into Wikipedia to improve automatisation of repetitive editing procedures, including the implementation of the possible use of structured data, I rarely hear "It Is Not Made Here" or "It's Bad Because Its New".
When it comes to analyse the problems with Wikidata it isn't only about possible early-lifecycle issues(which can be fix), but about the blind spot when it comes to develope working social processes which keep everybody (especially the editors) in the picture.
Community involvement (especially consultations) are often seem to be organized only out of necessity. They not in the middle of the decision-making process. Nobody said that doing things the way they are done in a crowdsourced, community-driven process are easy, but this is no excuse for any Foundation or other similiar entity to set up an intransparent, precendents creating process where community becomes accessories.
The whole way the Knowledge Engine process was implemented, the whole still intransparent incident of kicking a highly valued community-selected person out of the WMF board are clear signals that some people already decided about the future of Wikimedia and now staging a folksy broad consultation circus to create the impression of transparent community involvement. - Deciding about the color of the car if you would instead prefer to talk about the vehicle is the illusion of community-based decisionmaking.
We need a lot of change in the social procedures at the level of really needed ground work which is important for changing the Wikiprojects to make them work for the future. To reflect and to work on the development of these social procedures would be the most precious work to be done by the Foundation. Instead the Foundation dreams of techbubble-driven, humanless wonderland full of free floading informations which magically forms into knowledge when it somehow hits a human being.
I like the idea of Wikidata. I like the idea of combining Encylopedia with structured data to enable understanding and easy re-use at the reader-side of Wikiprojects. So many things are imaginable there when the culture of conveying the needed individual and social skills are done well. Tech is only tool to these processes. Tools are important, but not the purpose when it comes to disseminate knowledge.
regards, Jens
2016-01-19 15:56 GMT+01:00 Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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On 2016-01-19 16:58, Jens Best wrote:
I like the idea of Wikidata. I like the idea of combining Encylopedia with structured data to enable understanding and easy re-use at the reader-side of Wikiprojects. So many things are imaginable there when the culture of conveying the needed individual and social skills are done well. Tech is only tool to these processes. Tools are important, but not the purpose when it comes to disseminate knowledge.
regards, Jens
Actually, Wikidata itself is an excellent positive example of community involvement. All things, including technical innovations, are discussed at the village pump (there, it is called Project Chat); for those who are less active in some areas there are weekly digests covering all the activities; if there is a technical problem help comes within minutes. It is of course much easier for a smaller scale project, but the problems in Wikipedia from Wikidata come, I believe, not from negligence or from insufficient attention to the community, but from bad communication.
Cheers Yaroslav
On Thu, Jan 21, 2016 at 11:54 PM Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure where you get your impressions, Magnus. But when I discuss ideas for a better implementation of Wikidata into Wikipedia to improve automatisation of repetitive editing procedures, including the implementation of the possible use of structured data, I rarely hear "It Is Not Made Here" or "It's Bad Because Its New".
No, of course you don't hear that, because no one wants to sound like that. What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes don't count), which is the "Wikipedia is unreliable" Spiel we heard from Britannica or Brockhaus. I have a bot that can add and update lists on Wikis, and it is accused by some of "vandalism", even though it doesn't edit in the article namespace, and requires a user-made template to do edits in the first place. Those are the kind of strawman "arguments" made instead.
When it comes to analyse the problems with Wikidata it isn't only about possible early-lifecycle issues(which can be fix), but about the blind spot when it comes to develope working social processes which keep everybody (especially the editors) in the picture.
People can edit Wikipedia. People can edit Wikidata. With the same account. Erveryone can have as clear a picture as they want. Few do.
It strikes me that a similar thing was happening to Commons, in the same "communities". There is still a "don't move your pictures to Commons, they will be deleted!" meme floating around on German Wikipedia.
Community involvement (especially consultations) are often seem to be organized only out of necessity. They not in the middle of the decision-making process. Nobody said that doing things the way they are done in a crowdsourced, community-driven process are easy, but this is no excuse for any Foundation or other similiar entity to set up an intransparent, precendents creating process where community becomes accessories.
The whole way the Knowledge Engine process was implemented, the whole still intransparent incident of kicking a highly valued community-selected person out of the WMF board are clear signals that some people already decided about the future of Wikimedia and now staging a folksy broad consultation circus to create the impression of transparent community involvement. - Deciding about the color of the car if you would instead prefer to talk about the vehicle is the illusion of community-based decisionmaking.
Not sure what's with that "Knowledge Engine" phrase - looks to me it was used by the donating party, and made its way into a blog. Anyone know more details?
And communities don't start new things. Individuals, or small groups of them, do. I was on the GNU mailing list when, after the Nupedia launch, they were discussing the creation of a "free encyclopedia". Lots of high-flying plans, lots of talk. And if WIkipedia hadn't started, they would still be talking. IIRC they shut up pretty quickly after that. Sometimes, you just need to throw things at the wall and see what sticks. And if you wait around for permission of communities, the wall will crumble to dust before anything happens.
And we are NOT sidetracking to some WMF personell issues in a thread that has my name on it, please! ;-)
We need a lot of change in the social procedures at the level of really needed ground work which is important for changing the Wikiprojects to make them work for the future. To reflect and to work on the development of these social procedures would be the most precious work to be done by the Foundation. Instead the Foundation dreams of techbubble-driven, humanless wonderland full of free floading informations which magically forms into knowledge when it somehow hits a human being.
Still with the babbling about a "techbubble"? I thought we had moved past that nonsense.
I like the idea of Wikidata. I like the idea of combining Encylopedia with structured data to enable understanding and easy re-use at the reader-side of Wikiprojects. So many things are imaginable there when the culture of conveying the needed individual and social skills are done well. Tech is only tool to these processes. Tools are important, but not the purpose when it comes to disseminate knowledge.
I agree with this entire paragraph 100%. I would like to add, though, that sometimes, technology opens an unexpected door, even, and especially, when no one asked for it. Like Jimbo and Larry adding a wiki to the Nupedia site, just to see what would happen.
Cheers, Magnus
regards, Jens
2016-01-19 15:56 GMT+01:00 Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes don't count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to fulfil one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious that Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a "reliable source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing the existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error rate of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and are forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to fulfil one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious that Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a "reliable source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error rate of 20%.
Could you give some specific examples of such cases, with links to the relevant article versions?
Andreas
Hoi, I regularly blog. It was mentioned in one of my blogposts [1].. By the way the obvious would be to do some research yourself. Paper tigers [2] are those tigers that rely on what others have to say, Thanks., GerardM
[1] http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-recovery-and-mental-hea... [2] http://www.letusdiy.org/uploads/userup/0911/3000041GC2.jpg
On 25 January 2016 at 16:11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%.
Could you give some specific examples of such cases, with links to the relevant article versions?
Andreas _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, Eh, wrong link ... http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-20-error-rate.html
On 25 January 2016 at 17:29, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I regularly blog. It was mentioned in one of my blogposts [1].. By the way the obvious would be to do some research yourself. Paper tigers [2] are those tigers that rely on what others have to say, Thanks., GerardM
[1] http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-recovery-and-mental-hea... [2] http://www.letusdiy.org/uploads/userup/0911/3000041GC2.jpg
On 25 January 2016 at 16:11, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 2:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%.
Could you give some specific examples of such cases, with links to the relevant article versions?
Andreas _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Eh, wrong link ... http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-20-error-rate.html
On 25 January 2016 at 17:29, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I regularly blog. It was mentioned in one of my blogposts [1].. By the
way
the obvious would be to do some research yourself. Paper tigers [2] are those tigers that rely on what others have to say, Thanks., GerardM
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-recovery-and-mental-hea...
[2] http://www.letusdiy.org/uploads/userup/0911/3000041GC2.jpg
Gerard,
You say in your January 2016 blog post,
------------
The article on the Spearman Medal is a case in point. This medal is conferred by the British Psychological Society to psychologists. There were 19 links and two were wrong. One link was to a soccer and one to a football player. The award is conferred since 1965 so there ought to be quite a number of red links
With two sportsmen attributed to winning the Spearman Medal there was an error rate of 20%.
------------
Looking at the current version of the [[Spearman Medal]] article,[1] last touched in August 2014 (i.e. well before your blog post), I find it contains 20 (not 19) blue links in its List of medal winners (along with a bunch of red links).
Looking at the blue links, I find only one soccer/football player (Richard Crisp), not two. However, there is also a research climatologist specialising in viticulture (Gregory V. Jones).
These two would seem quite obviously to be wrong, given that the Spearman Medal is given to psychologists. So I agree with you that at least two blue links lead to the wrong person.
I don't agree with your percentage calculation: if 2 out of 20 blue links lead to the wrong person, that makes an error rate of 10% (not 20%).
I note that only two of the names in the list have references. That's just as bad as Wikidata. :)
The saving grace is that at least the article cites a British Psychological Society webpage in its lead where an official list of medal winners[2] is linked. Frankly, I would consider that page a better reference than the Wikipedia page. It's good to see that it outranks the Wikipedia page in search engines.
Speaking more broadly, I don't think you'll find me disagreeing with you that Wikipedia quality leaves much to be desired. I have written plenty about Wikipedia's reliability problems.
However, I consider the requirement for reliable sources to be a key factor in whatever quality improvement there has been in Wikipedia. Moreover, the presence of sources very often gives readers access to more reliable material than Wikipedia itself (as indeed is the case in the Spearman Medal article). That is useful.
In my view, much of Wikipedia has been and continues to be substandard. But without references, Wikidata's reliability problems are likely to be even greater than those of Wikipedia.
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spearman_Medal&oldid=62073568... [2] http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/bps/history-psychology-centre/history-socie...
Hoi, You want to compare it to the Reasonator item. It has all the right links for 43 award winners. That is 100% I did not have problems telling Wikipedians that there link was wrong. The information is there and there are more 'blue' links than in Wikipedia.
The proof is in the pudding. For simple lists and links Wikidata is hands down superior. Thanks, GerardM
On 26 January 2016 at 12:21, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 4:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Eh, wrong link ... http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-20-error-rate.html
On 25 January 2016 at 17:29, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, I regularly blog. It was mentioned in one of my blogposts [1].. By the
way
the obvious would be to do some research yourself. Paper tigers [2] are those tigers that rely on what others have to say, Thanks., GerardM
[1]
http://ultimategerardm.blogspot.nl/2016/01/wikipedia-recovery-and-mental-hea...
[2] http://www.letusdiy.org/uploads/userup/0911/3000041GC2.jpg
Gerard,
You say in your January 2016 blog post,
The article on the Spearman Medal is a case in point. This medal is conferred by the British Psychological Society to psychologists. There were 19 links and two were wrong. One link was to a soccer and one to a football player. The award is conferred since 1965 so there ought to be quite a number of red links
With two sportsmen attributed to winning the Spearman Medal there was an error rate of 20%.
Looking at the current version of the [[Spearman Medal]] article,[1] last touched in August 2014 (i.e. well before your blog post), I find it contains 20 (not 19) blue links in its List of medal winners (along with a bunch of red links).
Looking at the blue links, I find only one soccer/football player (Richard Crisp), not two. However, there is also a research climatologist specialising in viticulture (Gregory V. Jones).
These two would seem quite obviously to be wrong, given that the Spearman Medal is given to psychologists. So I agree with you that at least two blue links lead to the wrong person.
I don't agree with your percentage calculation: if 2 out of 20 blue links lead to the wrong person, that makes an error rate of 10% (not 20%).
I note that only two of the names in the list have references. That's just as bad as Wikidata. :)
The saving grace is that at least the article cites a British Psychological Society webpage in its lead where an official list of medal winners[2] is linked. Frankly, I would consider that page a better reference than the Wikipedia page. It's good to see that it outranks the Wikipedia page in search engines.
Speaking more broadly, I don't think you'll find me disagreeing with you that Wikipedia quality leaves much to be desired. I have written plenty about Wikipedia's reliability problems.
However, I consider the requirement for reliable sources to be a key factor in whatever quality improvement there has been in Wikipedia. Moreover, the presence of sources very often gives readers access to more reliable material than Wikipedia itself (as indeed is the case in the Spearman Medal article). That is useful.
In my view, much of Wikipedia has been and continues to be substandard. But without references, Wikidata's reliability problems are likely to be even greater than those of Wikipedia.
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Spearman_Medal&oldid=62073568... [2]
http://www.bps.org.uk/what-we-do/bps/history-psychology-centre/history-socie... _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:32 AM, Gerard Meijssen <gerard.meijssen@gmail.com
wrote:
Hoi, You want to compare it to the Reasonator item. It has all the right links for 43 award winners. That is 100% I did not have problems telling Wikipedians that there link was wrong. The information is there and there are more 'blue' links than in Wikipedia.
Well, not 100% either, because the 1982 winner, Andrew W. Ellis, is missing in Reasonator.[1]
The proof is in the pudding. For simple lists and links Wikidata is hands down superior.
That depends entirely on the volunteers involved, and the quality of their work. I don't think Wikidata has a systemic advantage. At any rate, given its lack of referencing standards, what's being added to Wikidata today is less likely to be verifiable than what is being added to Wikipedia today.
Andreas
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of all items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not the case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal Wikidata links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means the item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article will have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I expect a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages, or lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have at least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements there are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing the existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error rate of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and are forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to fulfil one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious that Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Why not insist that every piece of data added to wikidata is supported by a reliable source?
That's a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
Saying, "Well, Wikipedia is unreliable, too" doesn't answer the question.
You're all bright people, and I assume there is a good reason not to insist on reliable sourcing for all of Wikidata's claims. What is it, please?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of all items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not the case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal Wikidata links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means the item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article will have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I expect a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages, or lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have at least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements there are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing
the
existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and are forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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I understand there are some data (say, the sky is blue) that are so obvious and well-known that no one would expect a source to be provided. I'm referring to data that everyone on earth doesn't know the answer to, like dry air contains 78.09*% *nitrogen.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Why not insist that every piece of data added to wikidata is supported by a reliable source?
That's a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
Saying, "Well, Wikipedia is unreliable, too" doesn't answer the question.
You're all bright people, and I assume there is a good reason not to insist on reliable sourcing for all of Wikidata's claims. What is it, please?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of all items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not the case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal Wikidata links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means the item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article will have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I expect a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages, or lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have at least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements there are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing
the
existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and are forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the
respective
Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or
anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Then you are willing to concede that we don't need references on disambiguation pages? What about categories? What about templates? Those all have items in Wikidata as well.
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 6:47 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
I understand there are some data (say, the sky is blue) that are so obvious and well-known that no one would expect a source to be provided. I'm referring to data that everyone on earth doesn't know the answer to, like dry air contains 78.09*% *nitrogen.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:39 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Why not insist that every piece of data added to wikidata is supported by a reliable source?
That's a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
Saying, "Well, Wikipedia is unreliable, too" doesn't answer the question.
You're all bright people, and I assume there is a good reason not to insist on reliable sourcing for all of Wikidata's claims. What is it, please?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of
all
items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not
the
case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal Wikidata links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means
the
item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article
will
have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I
expect
a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages,
or
lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have
at
least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements there are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by
replacing
the
existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and
are
forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the
respective
Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or
anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a
professionally
published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
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The answer is quite simple and is exactly the same as it is for Wikipedia: it's a wiki, and not everyone who contributes knows how to add references.
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 6:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Why not insist that every piece of data added to wikidata is supported by a reliable source?
That's a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
Saying, "Well, Wikipedia is unreliable, too" doesn't answer the question.
You're all bright people, and I assume there is a good reason not to insist on reliable sourcing for all of Wikidata's claims. What is it, please?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of all items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not the case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal
Wikidata
links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means
the
item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article will have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I
expect
a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages,
or
lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have
at
least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements
there
are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing
the
existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and
are
forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the
respective
Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or
anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a
professionally
published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, The question why add sources to every statement has nothing to do with Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is mentioned, it is because Wikipedians say that Wikidata is inferior "because we have sources".
When the question is to be asked seriously, the answer becomes quite different.
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a book a publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH more time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right.. - At this stage of Wikidata, it is very incomplete and very immature. Our biggest concern is coverage more than anything else. Ask yourself on that book is it more relevant to have links to the authors or to the ISBN number if any? We actually need both. - Perceived quality is very much in the completeness of the data, the ease of going from item to item. This is true in Wikipedia and even more so in Wikidata. People read the article and some take an interest in sources. - When I add award winners, there may be a few there may fifty. All the statements are on the award winners. I can automate the insertion of the statement. I cannot automate the insertion of a source.
Thanks, GerardM
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/reasonator/?&q=22019124
On 26 January 2016 at 06:39, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Why not insist that every piece of data added to wikidata is supported by a reliable source?
That's a genuine question. I don't know the answer.
Saying, "Well, Wikipedia is unreliable, too" doesn't answer the question.
You're all bright people, and I assume there is a good reason not to insist on reliable sourcing for all of Wikidata's claims. What is it, please?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 1:28 AM, Jane Darnell jane023@gmail.com wrote:
Actually I think Wikidata is sourced more thoroughly than any single Wikipedia. Looking at the last chart in those stats, less than 10% of all items have zero sitelinks, and we can't see in the stats whether 100% of those have zero referenced statements, but I would assume that is not the case, especially since items with zero sitelinks and zero internal
Wikidata
links tend to be "cleaned up and deleted". At least one sitelink means
the
item is coming from a Wikipedia, and therefore the Wikipedia article will have references that could be used in the Wikidata item and just haven't been added yet. Of all the items with zero or just one statement, I
expect
a great deal of these to be linked to categories, disambiguation pages,
or
lists, as these types of items generally only contain one statement.
Also, we currently have no way to count unreferenced statements in Wikipedia articles, but there are very few Wikipedia articles that have
at
least one reference per sentence. So concluding that any single unreferenced statement no matter how many other referenced statements
there
are in the item brings an entire Wikidata item into the "untrustworthy zone" is just silly.
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 3:32 PM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
Hoi, Maybe.. but not all Wikipedias are the same. It is verifiable that Wikipedia would easily benefit from Wikidata from Wikidata by replacing
the
existing links and red links with functionality that uses Wikidata.
It happens often that I work on content in Wikipedia and find an error
rate
of 20%. When you check Wikidata for its quality I expect it to be much better than 90%.
It is blooming obvious that Wikipedians only see fault elsewhere and
are
forgiving for the error in their own way. Thanks, GerardM
On 25 January 2016 at 14:55, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the
respective
Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or
anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a
professionally
published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a book a
publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH more time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right..
Also, Wikidata has not found a way yet to work with books. Yes, it's relatively easy to create an item for a recent book and populate it with a few statements relatively to the main metadata (author, year of publishing, publisher).
What we don't have is a way to *consistently* work with books (which have often many translations and editions). We cannot import (yet) library catalogs in wikidata[1]. We don't even have a consistent way to link Wikidata to Wikisource (index pages, ns0 pages).
I think this is quite relevant for the reference issue.
Aubrey
[1] there is an ongoing project with the National Library of Florence, in Italy. We now have a script to import records in WIkibase, and will do on a local one. Then we will approach Wikidata.
To cite a book just add the ISBN and page number. Leave it at that; or perhaps you could devise a bot that follows up, converting ISBN + page number into a full-blown reference. On 26 Jan 2016 4:20 pm, "Andrea Zanni" zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a
book a
publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH
more
time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right..
Also, Wikidata has not found a way yet to work with books. Yes, it's relatively easy to create an item for a recent book and populate it with a few statements relatively to the main metadata (author, year of publishing, publisher).
What we don't have is a way to *consistently* work with books (which have often many translations and editions). We cannot import (yet) library catalogs in wikidata[1]. We don't even have a consistent way to link Wikidata to Wikisource (index pages, ns0 pages).
I think this is quite relevant for the reference issue.
Aubrey
[1] there is an ongoing project with the National Library of Florence, in Italy. We now have a script to import records in WIkibase, and will do on a local one. Then we will approach Wikidata. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 10:45 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
To cite a book just add the ISBN and page number. Leave it at that; or perhaps you could devise a bot that follows up, converting ISBN + page number into a full-blown reference.
Most of the time, I think your approach is good enough. But please don't assume that there is a bijection between books ("works") and ISBNs. * not all books have ISBNs (ISBN has been widely used from 1970s) * that ISBNs are *always* unique (publishers reuse them to save money)(yeah, I know) * you often have a different ISBN for the ebook, for the paperback, for the hardcover, of the same book etc. * right now, we don't really know how to consistenly works to their different editions and translations.
I'm simply stating that the reason we don't have Wikidata full of book records is a deep one.
Aubrey
That is so true! Making book items is hard and then using them in reference statements is harder
-----Original Message----- From: "Andrea Zanni" zanni.andrea84@gmail.com Sent: 26-1-2016 09:20 To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a book a
publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH more time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right..
Also, Wikidata has not found a way yet to work with books. Yes, it's relatively easy to create an item for a recent book and populate it with a few statements relatively to the main metadata (author, year of publishing, publisher).
What we don't have is a way to *consistently* work with books (which have often many translations and editions). We cannot import (yet) library catalogs in wikidata[1]. We don't even have a consistent way to link Wikidata to Wikisource (index pages, ns0 pages).
I think this is quite relevant for the reference issue.
Aubrey
[1] there is an ongoing project with the National Library of Florence, in Italy. We now have a script to import records in WIkibase, and will do on a local one. Then we will approach Wikidata. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Most editions of most books published in the last 40 years (certainly books from reliable publishers) have an ISBN that identifies one edition. Most reliable journal articles these days have a doi. For simple citing of web pages, you could automatically convert bare urls to archived versions of the cited web page.
There is a difference between unreliable assertions and knowledge. Wikimedia should be distributing knowledge. That's what the mission statement says. Wikidata could take citation a bit more seriously. On 26 Jan 2016 5:59 pm, "Jane Darnell" jane023@gmail.com wrote:
That is so true! Making book items is hard and then using them in reference statements is harder
-----Original Message----- From: "Andrea Zanni" zanni.andrea84@gmail.com Sent: 26-1-2016 09:20 To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a
book a
publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH
more
time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right..
Also, Wikidata has not found a way yet to work with books. Yes, it's relatively easy to create an item for a recent book and populate it with a few statements relatively to the main metadata (author, year of publishing, publisher).
What we don't have is a way to *consistently* work with books (which have often many translations and editions). We cannot import (yet) library catalogs in wikidata[1]. We don't even have a consistent way to link Wikidata to Wikisource (index pages, ns0 pages).
I think this is quite relevant for the reference issue.
Aubrey
[1] there is an ongoing project with the National Library of Florence, in Italy. We now have a script to import records in WIkibase, and will do on a local one. Then we will approach Wikidata. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Hoi, Anthony, having sources is desired. The point is not that we do not want them. We clearly do. My point is that it is not the only yardstick of success and quality.
As I argued, Wikidata may be a tool to link links and red links properly. It will improve quality in both Wikipedia and Wikidata. It has nothing to do with sources at the Wikipedia end because links are already based on existing sources. It improves quality because it is assured that the link go where they are supposed to go given the source :) .
When we ensure quality for all our Wikipedias, the implicit quality rises in Wikidata because we clearly want statements that describe the relation. As relations are linked to Wikipedia, the source of that Wikipedia applies. It does not mean that by other means the quality of the statements will not be checked and improved.
In this way everybody wins. It is about our quality, it is measurable, it is achievable, it is SMART. Requiring statements for every Wikidata statement at this time of its life cycle is not. Thanks, GerardM
On 26 January 2016 at 11:58, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Most editions of most books published in the last 40 years (certainly books from reliable publishers) have an ISBN that identifies one edition. Most reliable journal articles these days have a doi. For simple citing of web pages, you could automatically convert bare urls to archived versions of the cited web page.
There is a difference between unreliable assertions and knowledge. Wikimedia should be distributing knowledge. That's what the mission statement says. Wikidata could take citation a bit more seriously. On 26 Jan 2016 5:59 pm, "Jane Darnell" jane023@gmail.com wrote:
That is so true! Making book items is hard and then using them in reference statements is harder
-----Original Message----- From: "Andrea Zanni" zanni.andrea84@gmail.com Sent: 26-1-2016 09:20 To: "Wikimedia Mailing List" wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 8:03 AM, Gerard Meijssen < gerard.meijssen@gmail.com> wrote:
- It is really laborious to add references. Many references are a
book a
publication and I give you one example of a book [1]. It takes MUCH
more
time to add a source than it is to add a statement. The book, the authors they need sources in their own right..
Also, Wikidata has not found a way yet to work with books. Yes, it's relatively easy to create an item for a recent book and
populate
it with a few statements relatively to the main metadata (author, year of publishing, publisher).
What we don't have is a way to *consistently* work with books (which have often many translations and editions). We cannot import (yet) library catalogs in wikidata[1]. We don't even have a consistent way to link Wikidata to Wikisource (index pages, ns0 pages).
I think this is quite relevant for the reference issue.
Aubrey
[1] there is an ongoing project with the National Library of Florence, in Italy. We now have a script to import records in WIkibase, and will do
on a
local one. Then we will approach Wikidata. _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Most editions of most books published in the last 40 years (certainly books from reliable publishers) have an ISBN that identifies one edition. Most reliable journal articles these days have a doi. For simple citing of web pages, you could automatically convert bare urls to archived versions of the cited web page.
I do agree with you. But the problem emerges if you want to cite the reference (the book, the article) as an item. There you have to take into account a "book model" in Wikidata, and it's easier said than done. (scientific articles are a bit easier, and Magnus is working on them). https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Source_MetaData
Aubrey
Yes, Aubrey. It would be way too onerous to expect us to make each citation a Wikidata item.
On Tuesday, 26 January 2016, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
Most editions of most books published in the last 40 years (certainly
books
from reliable publishers) have an ISBN that identifies one edition. Most reliable journal articles these days have a doi. For simple citing of web pages, you could automatically convert bare urls to archived versions of the cited web page.
I do agree with you. But the problem emerges if you want to cite the reference (the book, the article) as an item. There you have to take into account a "book model" in Wikidata, and it's easier said than done. (scientific articles are a bit easier, and Magnus is working on them). https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Source_MetaData
Aubrey _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
Why Anthony On 26 January 2016 at 20:46, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, Aubrey. It would be way too onerous to expect us to make each citation a Wikidata item.
If you use the currently available templates to format your citation then its possible to extract this information with a bot, the next step is how to use that to create a wikidata item... nothing onerous in using citation templates on WP.
as for book older books dont have ISBNs, and some books are individually notable yet assuming they have an ISBN they share that with the 1,000's of of identical books that arent notable.
So many of my concerns and issues over WikiData were cleared up by Andy Mabbett when he toured Australia last month, maybe WikiData/WMF could get Andy on the road and talking to more communities it'd resolved many of the underlying issues that are clogging up the system through misunderstanding or false expectations
On 26 January 2016 at 20:46, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Yes, Aubrey. It would be way too onerous to expect us to make each citation a Wikidata item.
On Tuesday, 26 January 2016, Andrea Zanni zanni.andrea84@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 11:58 AM, Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu@gmail.com javascript:;> wrote:
Most editions of most books published in the last 40 years (certainly
books
from reliable publishers) have an ISBN that identifies one edition.
Most
reliable journal articles these days have a doi. For simple citing of
web
pages, you could automatically convert bare urls to archived versions
of
the cited web page.
I do agree with you. But the problem emerges if you want to cite the reference (the book, the article) as an item. There you have to take into account a "book model" in Wikidata, and it's easier said than done. (scientific articles are a bit easier, and Magnus
is
working on them). https://www.wikidata.org/wiki/Wikidata:WikiProject_Source_MetaData
Aubrey _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org javascript:; ?subject=unsubscribe>
-- Anthony Cole _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Be careful with that "obvious" word...
http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=378
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 1:56 PM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to fulfil one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious that Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a "reliable source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Be careful with that "obvious" word...
Hi Magnus,
Things have been busy of late, and I never had time to properly respond to this blog post of yours. (For anyone else who has forgotten, this was the discussion about vast swathes of Wikidata lacking reliable references, as discussed in [1].)
You say, "the impression I get from Andreas’ text is that, while Wikipedia has some issues, references are basically OK, whereas they are essentially non-existent in Wikidata." In your piece, you then go on to compare the referencing density of Wikidata content to that of Wikipedia content, finding that Wikidata, even now, doesn't do at all badly compared to Wikipedia.
You present it as a sort of sibling rivalry: if Wikipedia doesn't do any better herself, why does she complain about her sister Wikidata? I recall Denny and Gerard making similar arguments.
In doing so, you miss the core point of the criticism. My point is that Wikipedia's *referencing standards are okay*, and that *those* are what Wikidata should be assessed against.
Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a database. The whole purpose of a database is to have its content multiplied and surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its content stand on solid ground.
If you want to measure Wikidata against something else, you should measure it against the sources that open knowledge currently relies on, i.e. the quality standards underlying WP:V, WP:RS and so on, especially if Wikidata will also be used as a source in Wikipedias.
My argument has never been that Wikipedia content is good, and Wikidata content is rubbish. The quality of Wikipedia's content is extremely variable. Sometimes it's alarmingly unstable, and you see Wikipedia "truth" shifting from one extreme to the other (example: [2]). Sometimes it's manipulated (example: [3]). Wikipedia contains *a lot* of rubbish, alongside some undeniably good content.
It's for that reason that I view it with dismay when Wikidata makes wholesale imports "from Wikipedia", without so much as traceability to a specific article and article revision, and a check whether the information taken from Wikipedia was accurately sourced there.
At the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group, we recently discussed the use of Wikipedia as a source for legal decisions.[4] On a human level, it's perfectly normal and understandable for Wikimedians to feel validated, to feel pride whenever a court makes such use of Wikipedia. But in my view, one of the core tasks of the Wikimedia community should be to *discourage* such use, and teach the legal profession Wikipedia literacy. This includes at its most basic level not putting any faith into any statement in Wikipedia *per se*, but instead checking and assessing its sourcing on each and every occasion, and referencing the source instead. We all know that complete nonsense can survive for a long time in Wikipedia, even in highly trafficked articles.
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-12-02/Op-ed [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Klee-Irwin.gif [3] http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogus-busi... [4] https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/969531789761319/
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 1:56 PM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to fulfil one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious that Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hoi, It is becoming boring. Andreas, quality is not in sources. They are often horrible. Your notion that only sources are good is off.
It has been argued too often that quality is in much more than only sources. The argument that Wikidata is immature has been made all frequently and the point is very much that we need to concentrate our effort on where effort has the biggest impact.
To improve quality in a meaningful way, sources will not make much of a difference when adding them is not targeted. The most impact is achieved when differences between sources are identified and when they are curated.
Andreas, it is irrelevant what others say, I do not care at all. I care however very much about quality, I blog frequently about it and I am happy that my understanding evolves. I sincerely hope that you take the time to consider what is important; dogma or making a qualitative difference in our projects. Thanks, GerardM
On 11 March 2016 at 12:41, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 26, 2016 at 9:36 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
Be careful with that "obvious" word...
Hi Magnus,
Things have been busy of late, and I never had time to properly respond to this blog post of yours. (For anyone else who has forgotten, this was the discussion about vast swathes of Wikidata lacking reliable references, as discussed in [1].)
You say, "the impression I get from Andreas’ text is that, while Wikipedia has some issues, references are basically OK, whereas they are essentially non-existent in Wikidata." In your piece, you then go on to compare the referencing density of Wikidata content to that of Wikipedia content, finding that Wikidata, even now, doesn't do at all badly compared to Wikipedia.
You present it as a sort of sibling rivalry: if Wikipedia doesn't do any better herself, why does she complain about her sister Wikidata? I recall Denny and Gerard making similar arguments.
In doing so, you miss the core point of the criticism. My point is that Wikipedia's *referencing standards are okay*, and that *those* are what Wikidata should be assessed against.
Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a database. The whole purpose of a database is to have its content multiplied and surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its content stand on solid ground.
If you want to measure Wikidata against something else, you should measure it against the sources that open knowledge currently relies on, i.e. the quality standards underlying WP:V, WP:RS and so on, especially if Wikidata will also be used as a source in Wikipedias.
My argument has never been that Wikipedia content is good, and Wikidata content is rubbish. The quality of Wikipedia's content is extremely variable. Sometimes it's alarmingly unstable, and you see Wikipedia "truth" shifting from one extreme to the other (example: [2]). Sometimes it's manipulated (example: [3]). Wikipedia contains *a lot* of rubbish, alongside some undeniably good content.
It's for that reason that I view it with dismay when Wikidata makes wholesale imports "from Wikipedia", without so much as traceability to a specific article and article revision, and a check whether the information taken from Wikipedia was accurately sourced there.
At the Wikipedia Weekly Facebook group, we recently discussed the use of Wikipedia as a source for legal decisions.[4] On a human level, it's perfectly normal and understandable for Wikimedians to feel validated, to feel pride whenever a court makes such use of Wikipedia. But in my view, one of the core tasks of the Wikimedia community should be to *discourage* such use, and teach the legal profession Wikipedia literacy. This includes at its most basic level not putting any faith into any statement in Wikipedia *per se*, but instead checking and assessing its sourcing on each and every occasion, and referencing the source instead. We all know that complete nonsense can survive for a long time in Wikipedia, even in highly trafficked articles.
Andreas
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2015-12-02/Op-ed [2] https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Klee-Irwin.gif [3]
http://www.newsweek.com/2015/04/03/manipulating-wikipedia-promote-bogus-busi... [4] https://www.facebook.com/groups/wikipediaweekly/permalink/969531789761319/
On Mon, Jan 25, 2016 at 1:56 PM Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com
wrote:
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 9:34 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
What you hear is "Wikidata is unreliable" (compared to the respective Wikipedia; proof, anyone? Please, show me proof; silence or anecdotes
don't
count)
Any non-trivial content you want to add to Wikipedia today has to
fulfil
one basic criterion: that the content be traceable to a professionally published source.
Most Wikidata content fails that criterion.[1] It's blooming obvious
that
Wikidata is "unreliable" according to Wikipedia's definition of a
"reliable
source", isn't it?[2]
[1] https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-todo/stats.php [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:SPS _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a database. The whole purpose of a database is to have its content multiplied and surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its content stand on solid ground.
I disagree with that. In my opinion Wikipedia and Wikidata do not have different purposes, they complement each other. In an ideal world all the data present in Wikidata should surface in Wikipedia, and be referenced from there. However it is expected that the data comes already referenced at *statement* level from Wikidata, when Wikipedia doesn't comply with those standards either. This assumes that the Wikidata community is a generator of perfectly referenced facts and that the Wikipedia communities are mere consumers of data. This is a toxic view because it goes against the core principle of wikis as a tool for taking ownership of the means of knowledge aggregation and distribution.
It has to be noted too, that in Wikidata many items have external identifiers, references, and sources, and they apply to the whole information contained, not just one single statement, that is something that should be taken into account when speaking about reliability.
Besides this discussion is trite. Quality comes from use, research and oversight, and without tools for working with wikidata from wikipedia, like connected infoboxes, there is no point in discussing about data quality, because as you said "no one reads a database"... except for a few people like me I guess :)
Cheers, Micru
Micru,
That seems a very Wikipedia-centric analysis, as though Wikidata were only there to feed Wikipedia. I think most re-users of Wikidata will be elsewhere, and indeed be passive consumers and commercial rebranders whose audience is unlikely to feed back into Wikidata.
The following article in The Register, which resulted from a conversation with Andy Mabbett, explains this quite well:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/25/wikidata_turns_the_world_into_a_data...
There was also another media story last week, about a project by Dutch firm Lab1100 (complete with some sceptical comments about data quality). It's a Wikidata-based map of historical military battles fought across the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/12180516/Geography-of-violence-Map... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35685889
So the commercial potential is huge.
I'm not blind to the argument that use will lead to correction, but it has to be balanced against the risks of "garbage in, garbage out", given the huge amount of data that will eventually accumulate and need to be curated by volunteers, and bearing in mind that the CC-0 licence has the potential of obscuring the origin of the data, cutting the very feedback loop your argument relies on for a substantial subset of end users.
Andreas
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 1:57 PM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a database. The whole purpose of a database is to have its content multiplied and surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its content stand on solid ground.
I disagree with that. In my opinion Wikipedia and Wikidata do not have different purposes, they complement each other. In an ideal world all the data present in Wikidata should surface in Wikipedia, and be referenced from there. However it is expected that the data comes already referenced at *statement* level from Wikidata, when Wikipedia doesn't comply with those standards either. This assumes that the Wikidata community is a generator of perfectly referenced facts and that the Wikipedia communities are mere consumers of data. This is a toxic view because it goes against the core principle of wikis as a tool for taking ownership of the means of knowledge aggregation and distribution.
It has to be noted too, that in Wikidata many items have external identifiers, references, and sources, and they apply to the whole information contained, not just one single statement, that is something that should be taken into account when speaking about reliability.
Besides this discussion is trite. Quality comes from use, research and oversight, and without tools for working with wikidata from wikipedia, like connected infoboxes, there is no point in discussing about data quality, because as you said "no one reads a database"... except for a few people like me I guess :)
Cheers, Micru
Andreas,
Of course it is a Wikipedia-centric analysis, because citing the article you provide (bold in the original): *Wikidata presents Wikipedia as structured data* Wikidata does not exist in isolation. In symbiosis with existing projects it acts as a catalyst, or at least that is one of the goals.
I am aware of the risks of the CC0 license reuse, and of the possible "garbage dump" effect, but so far the process of data import/correlation has been highly human supervised, with initiatives like the Wikidata game: https://tools.wmflabs.org/wikidata-game/# or Mix'n'match: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mix%27n%27match There is also a process for approving data imports, it is not such a wild place...
So far it is unclear how the relationship with external consumers will evolve, maybe it is a new opportunity for them to participate in the data curation process, either directly or through entirely new feedback loops that are not possible in the traditional Wikipedia setting. For instance: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Wikibase_Quality_Extensions
All in all, I find very positive that you bring this issues into public awareness, it gives a broader perspective of the limits of the platform, both technical and social. I think there is still a lot to discuss about it, and it is good to have the conversation rolling.
Cheers, Micru
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 5:25 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Micru,
That seems a very Wikipedia-centric analysis, as though Wikidata were only there to feed Wikipedia. I think most re-users of Wikidata will be elsewhere, and indeed be passive consumers and commercial rebranders whose audience is unlikely to feed back into Wikidata.
The following article in The Register, which resulted from a conversation with Andy Mabbett, explains this quite well:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2016/02/25/wikidata_turns_the_world_into_a_data...
There was also another media story last week, about a project by Dutch firm Lab1100 (complete with some sceptical comments about data quality). It's a Wikidata-based map of historical military battles fought across the world:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/12180516/Geography-of-violence-Map... http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-35685889
So the commercial potential is huge.
I'm not blind to the argument that use will lead to correction, but it has to be balanced against the risks of "garbage in, garbage out", given the huge amount of data that will eventually accumulate and need to be curated by volunteers, and bearing in mind that the CC-0 licence has the potential of obscuring the origin of the data, cutting the very feedback loop your argument relies on for a substantial subset of end users.
Andreas
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 1:57 PM, David Cuenca Tudela dacuetu@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, Mar 11, 2016 at 12:41 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen466@gmail.com wrote:
Wikidata and Wikipedia have very different purposes: Wikipedia is an encyclopedia to be read; Wikidata is a database. No one reads a
database.
The whole purpose of a database is to have its content multiplied and surfaced elsewhere. Therefore it is even more essential that its
content
stand on solid ground.
I disagree with that. In my opinion Wikipedia and Wikidata do not have different purposes, they complement each other. In an ideal world all the data present in Wikidata should surface in Wikipedia, and be referenced from there. However it is expected that the data comes already referenced at *statement* level from Wikidata, when Wikipedia doesn't comply with those standards either. This assumes that the Wikidata community is a generator of perfectly referenced facts and that the Wikipedia communities are mere consumers of data. This is a toxic view because it goes against the core principle of wikis as a tool for taking ownership of the means of
knowledge
aggregation and distribution.
It has to be noted too, that in Wikidata many items have external identifiers, references, and sources, and they apply to the whole information contained, not just one single statement, that is something that should be taken into account when speaking about reliability.
Besides this discussion is trite. Quality comes from use, research and oversight, and without tools for working with wikidata from wikipedia,
like
connected infoboxes, there is no point in discussing about data quality, because as you said "no one reads a database"... except for a few people like me I guess :)
Cheers, Micru
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On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 4:58 PM, Jens Best best.jens@gmail.com wrote:
I'm not sure where you get your impressions, Magnus. But when I discuss ideas for a better implementation of Wikidata into Wikipedia to improve automatisation of repetitive editing procedures, including the implementation of the possible use of structured data, I rarely hear "It Is Not Made Here" or "It's Bad Because Its New".
When it comes to analyse the problems with Wikidata it isn't only about possible early-lifecycle issues(which can be fix), but about the blind spot when it comes to develope working social processes which keep everybody (especially the editors) in the picture.
Community involvement (especially consultations) are often seem to be organized only out of necessity. They not in the middle of the decision-making process. Nobody said that doing things the way they are done in a crowdsourced, community-driven process are easy, but this is no excuse for any Foundation or other similiar entity to set up an intransparent, precendents creating process where community becomes accessories.
I have spent a huge part of my waking hours over the past 4 years making sure that community always comes first in Wikidata. And I will continue to do so. But that doesn't mean that everyone always gets their way because that is simply impossible with the demands people have for Wikidata. What I have been doing and will continue to do is to engage with people on a rational and non-agitated level and hear them out so we can find ways to make it happen or get a better understanding of why something can't be done (yet). What we have created through this is an amazingly friendly, hard working and reasonable community on Wikidata that I am proud of every single day.
Cheers Lydia
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this thread. I have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do well remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite up to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen time and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the concurrent thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least over at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them or ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't distinguish them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF staffers who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and your contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay [1] earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe a formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable sources. Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with the number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references per statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because whole paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
1. http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=378
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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,
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Sorry, there's a typo in that last paragraph. It should read:
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata *statements*. If that is so, you should fix that.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 8:27 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay [1] earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe a formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable sources. Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with the number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references per statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because whole paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not Made Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
> On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote: > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
> would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle new
> software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality, but
> working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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Gnangarra,
I was away when Andy was here, and am really regretting missing his presentation. Can you explain to me why the Wikidata people have to make a wikidata item of every source before they can cite it?
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 8:29 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Sorry, there's a typo in that last paragraph. It should read:
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata *statements*. If that is so, you should fix that.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 8:27 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay [1] earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe a formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable sources. Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with the number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references per statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because whole paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not
Made
Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an
edit. It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then
most of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me
there is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly,
about an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project,
and your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same
time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
> > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
> wrote: > > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly enthusiastic. I > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle new
> > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality, but
> > working smoothly first. > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
> here. :-/ > > Thanks, > Mike > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay [1] earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe a formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable sources. Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with the number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references per statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because whole paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs, not references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is low (and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence. This reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the number of references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains constant, thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put them in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to add book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a random Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have learned one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references in particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I say: 1. You're wrong (it's already OK) 2. Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not
Made
Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
> On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote: > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
> would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle
new
> software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but
> working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you only counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph if, as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph often supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in the body of an article, citations are not expected or required in en.Wikipedia article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating Wikipedia's lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is worse". You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references is difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media viewer and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay [1] earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe a formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because whole paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs, not references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is low (and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence. This reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the number of references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains constant, thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put them in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to add book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a random Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have learned one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references in particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I
do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical or early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have
seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not
Made
Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an
edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors
were
unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then
most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation
now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and
the
community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me
there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at
least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly,
about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project,
and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the
basic
functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same
time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product.
If
we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
> > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
> wrote: > > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly enthusiastic. I > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle
new
> > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but
> > working smoothly first. > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example
to
make
> here. :-/ > > Thanks, > Mike > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point. Many editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after the last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just doesn't matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you only counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph if, as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph often supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in the body of an article, citations are not expected or required in en.Wikipedia article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating Wikipedia's lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is worse". You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references is difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media viewer and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the RPS ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker appears only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs, not references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is low (and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence. This reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the number of references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains constant, thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put them in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and others that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources. If that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to add book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a random Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have learned one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references in particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind it, as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had to be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they did, they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of the issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion is instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and I
do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical
or
early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have
seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And Not
Made
Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually.
The
product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an
edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors
were
unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then
most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation
now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and
the
community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny
in
earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me
there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at
least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly,
about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project,
and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
> The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the
basic
> functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same
time.
We
do > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product.
If
we
can > present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is
a
success > for us. > > I do stand by my example :-) > > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
wrote: > > > > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
> > > wrote: > > > > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly > enthusiastic. I > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle
new
> > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but
> > > working smoothly first. > > > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example
to
make
> > here. :-/ > > > > Thanks, > > Mike > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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?subject=unsubscribe>
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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-- André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com
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On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point. Many editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after the last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just doesn't matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you only counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph often supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is worse". You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media viewer and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each sentence contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their associated Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs, not references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains constant, thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put them in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have learned one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references in particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the "it's new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind
it,
as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community who had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had
to
be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they
did,
they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in short term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about that, it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably cause disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of working in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case. People see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are so large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of
the
issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my opinion
is
instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues into resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in this
thread. I
have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved, and
I
do
well
remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was not
quite
up
to the job.
What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some technical
or
early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless, even dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I have
seen
time
and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata.
It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it.
It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And
Not
Made
Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of
> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And
you're
> persisting with your idée fixe. > > There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually.
The
> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an
edit.
It
> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > > The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors
were
> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then
most
of
> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation
now.
> > The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they
have
> fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and
the
> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > > In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny
in
> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me
there
is
> still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at
least
over
> at WikiData. > > Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly,
about
an
> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down
to
them or
> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those
WMF
staffers
> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career
move.
> > Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and
your
> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early
visual
editor
> and its launch are both very disappointing. > > Anthony Cole > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > wrote: > > > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the
basic
> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same
time.
We
> do > > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If
we
> can > > present the product in such a way that more people use it, it
is
a
> success > > for us. > > > > I do stand by my example :-) > > > > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
> wrote: > > > > > > > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
> > > > > wrote: > > > > > > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly > > enthusiastic. I > > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to
handle
new
> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but
> > > > working smoothly first. > > > > > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to
make
> > > here. :-/ > > > > > > Thanks, > > > Mike > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
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Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references
in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind
it,
as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community
who
had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had
to
be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they
did,
they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are
so
large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of
the
issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in
this
thread. I > have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved,
and
I
do
well > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was
not
quite
up > to the job. > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or
> early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless,
even
> dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I
have
seen
time > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And
Not
Made
> Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote: > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of
>> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And
you're
>> persisting with your idée fixe. >> >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The
>> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
newbies. >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete
an
edit.
It >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. >> >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were
>> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But
then
most
of >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
>> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an
ignorant,
>> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now.
>> >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they
have
>> fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers
and
the
>> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. >> >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in
the
concurrent >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from
Denny
in
>> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to
me
there
is >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at
least
over >> at WikiData. >> >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about
an >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking
down
to
them or >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't distinguish >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
>> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
>> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those
WMF
staffers >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career
move.
>> >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and
your >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early
visual
editor >> and its launch are both very disappointing. >> >> Anthony Cole >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> >> wrote: >> >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the
basic
>> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the
same
time.
We >> do >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If
we
>> can >> > present the product in such a way that more people use it, it
is
a
>> success >> > for us. >> > >> > I do stand by my example :-) >> > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
>> wrote: >> > >> > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com >> > >> > > wrote: >> > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly >> > enthusiastic. I >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how
to
handle
new >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but >> > > > working smoothly first. >> > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to
make >> > > here. :-/ >> > > >> > > Thanks, >> > > Mike >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
, >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
>> > >> _______________________________________________ >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
>> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
<mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
-- André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com
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Ugh.I just edited the page and now it's not working. Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2/Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at
the
end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true
but
still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding
references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is
easy
to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than
adding
them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not
more
difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata
is
referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and
references in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
> new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd > exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is
behind
it,
> as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community
who
> had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual > editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I
had
to
> be, because I know you have done many good things. > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your
average
> Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
> skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they
did,
> they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
> term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
> it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
> disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
> in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are
so
> large that they do not want the product at all *until they are > resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also > forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery
of
the
> issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
> resistance against the product as a whole. > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in
this
> thread. I > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved,
and
I
do
> well > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, was
not
quite > up > > to the job. > > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or
> > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless,
even
> > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I
have
seen
> time > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. And
Not
Made > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> wrote: > > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And
you're
> >> persisting with your idée fixe. > >> > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The
> >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
> newbies. > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete
an
edit.
> It > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > >> > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were
> >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But
then
most
> of > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
> >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now.
> >> > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they
have
> >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers
and
the
> >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > >> > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in
the
> concurrent > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from
Denny
in
> >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to
me
there
> is > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing,
at
least
> over > >> at WikiData. > >> > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about
> an > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking
down
to
> them or > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you
can't
> distinguish > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those
WMF
> staffers > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career
move.
> >> > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and
> your > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early
visual
> editor > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. > >> > >> Anthony Cole > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > >> wrote: > >> > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do
the
basic
> >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the
same
time.
> We > >> do > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If
we > >> can > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use it,
it
is
a
> >> success > >> > for us. > >> > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) > >> > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
> >> wrote: > >> > > >> > > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < > magnusmanske@googlemail.com > >> > > >> > > wrote: > >> > > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be
overly
> >> > enthusiastic. I > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better how
to
handle > new > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, > but > >> > > > working smoothly first. > >> > > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to
> make > >> > > here. :-/ > >> > > > >> > > Thanks, > >> > > Mike > >> > > _______________________________________________ > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > > Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe> > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > , > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
, > >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > -- > André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
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?subject=unsubscribe>
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Ugh. This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2#Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ugh.I just edited the page and now it's not working. Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2/Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at
the
end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references
at
the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote
marker
supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a
paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source
in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true
but
still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding
references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is
easy
to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than
adding
them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
> Hi Magnus. > > I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1] > earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were addressing > me. > > Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a > formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable sources. > Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
> contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the > number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per > statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at
the
RPS
> ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of > en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
> Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison. >
Correct.
> > Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio
because
whole > paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
> only once at the end of the paragraph. >
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles
is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last
name,
birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
> > But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it should > be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid > arguments. >
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
> > The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
> that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
> that is so, you should fix that. >
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not
more
difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly
to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata
is
referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and
references in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references",
I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK)
- Patience (it will get even better)
Cheers, Magnus
> > > > 1. http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=378 > > Anthony Cole > > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
> wrote: > > > The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
> > new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a
crowd
> > exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is
behind
it,
> > as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the
community who
> > had a negative opinion about the first released version of
visual
> > editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I
had
to
> > be, because I know you have done many good things. > > > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your
average
> > Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
> > skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if
they
did,
> > they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
> > term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
> > it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
> > disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports > > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
> > in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> > see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues
are so
> > large that they do not want the product at all *until they are > > resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also > > forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery
of
the
> > issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> > instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
> > resistance against the product as a whole. > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in
this
> > thread. I > > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is deserved,
and
I
do > > well > > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation,
was not
> quite > > up > > > to the job. > > > > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or > > > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing worthless,
even
> > > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I
have
seen > > time > > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > > > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > > > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new.
And
Not
> Made > > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> > wrote: > > > > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt.
A
couple > of > > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And
you're
> > >> persisting with your idée fixe. > > >> > > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The > > >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
> > newbies. > > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully
complete an
edit. > > It > > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > > >> > > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were > > >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But
then
most > > of > > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly > > >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an > ignorant, > > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now. > > >> > > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and
they
have
> > >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the
developers and
the > > >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > > >> > > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in
the
> > concurrent > > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from
Denny
in > > >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems
to me
there > > is > > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing,
at
least > > over > > >> at WikiData. > > >> > > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about > > an > > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking
down
to
> > them or > > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you
can't
> > distinguish > > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and > well-founded > > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your
technical
> solutions > > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than
those
WMF
> > staffers > > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career
move.
> > >> > > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and > > your > > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early
visual
> > editor > > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. > > >> > > >> Anthony Cole > > >> > > >> > > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do
the
basic > > >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the
same
time. > > We > > >> do > > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If > we > > >> can > > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use it,
it
is
a > > >> success > > >> > for us. > > >> > > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) > > >> > > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel < email@mikepeel.net> > > >> wrote: > > >> > > > >> > > > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com > > >> > > > >> > > wrote: > > >> > > > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be
overly
> > >> > enthusiastic. I > > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better
how to
> handle > > new > > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic > functionality, > > but > > >> > > > working smoothly first. > > >> > > > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to > > make > > >> > > here. :-/ > > >> > > > > >> > > Thanks, > > >> > > Mike > > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > >> > > Unsubscribe: > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > ?subject=unsubscribe> > > >> > _______________________________________________ > > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > >> > Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > , > > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe> > > >> > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > >> Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > , > > >> mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > > > > > -- > > André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
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I like this for the interface, and as you said for the screen reading function. I hear WMF is working on some TTS thing now?
Not sure it would significantly alter my ratios at the moment, especially given its rather low takeup (i presume). In your example, it would actually make the ratio worse for Wikipedia, providing evidence for more than one statement per sentence ;-)
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 6:53 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ugh. This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2#Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ugh.I just edited the page and now it's not working. Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2/Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that
screen
readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at
the
end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references
at
the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences
after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote
marker
supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as
unsourced
statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers.
So
is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care
:-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of
you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end
of
paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a
paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in
his
response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source
in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true
but
still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding
references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is
easy
to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than
adding
them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com>
> wrote: > > > Hi Magnus. > > > > I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
> [1] > > earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were > addressing > > me. > > > > Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
> a > > formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by
reliable
> sources. > > Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
> > contains one statement of fact and compare the number of
sentences
with
> the > > number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
> per > > statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at
the
RPS
> > ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios
of
> > en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
> > Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter
comparison.
> > > > Correct. > > > > > Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio
because
> whole > > paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
> > only once at the end of the paragraph. > > > > Which is why I am counting reference markers within the
paragraphs,
not
> references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-) > > Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles
is
low
> (and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence
at
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams > This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last
name,
> birth > date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three > occupations). > But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one
sentence.
This
> reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
> references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
> thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia. > > > > > But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki
it
> should > > be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very
valid
> > arguments. > > > > I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't
put
them
> in > my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that. > > > > > > The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
> > that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
> > that is so, you should fix that. > > > > Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not
more
> difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and > drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly
to
add
> book references, but still reasoably possible. > What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick
a
random
> Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be > referenced to URLs. But this takes time. > Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years,
Wikidata
is
> referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
> one > thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and
references in
> particular, will improve over time. > So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing
references",
I
say:
> 1. You're wrong (it's already OK) > 2. Patience (it will get even better) > > Cheers, > Magnus > > > > > > > > > > 1. http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=378 > > > > Anthony Cole > > > > > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
> > wrote: > > > > > The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
> > > new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a
crowd
> > > exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is
behind
it,
> > > as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the
community who
> > > had a negative opinion about the first released version of
visual
> > > editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I
had
to
> > > be, because I know you have done many good things. > > > > > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your
average
> > > Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
> > > skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if
they
did,
> > > they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
> > > term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
> > > it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
> > > disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports > > > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > > > > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
> > > in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> > > see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues
are so
> > > large that they do not want the product at all *until they are > > > resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but
also
> > > forcing the product on them in the period between the
discovery
of
the
> > > issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> > > instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
> > > resistance against the product as a whole. > > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote in
this
> > > thread. I > > > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is
deserved,
and
I
> do > > > well > > > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation,
was not
> > quite > > > up > > > > to the job. > > > > > > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
> or > > > > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing
worthless,
even
> > > > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, I
have
> seen > > > time > > > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > > > > > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix
it.
> > > > > > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new.
And
Not
> > Made > > > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > > > > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> > > wrote: > > > > > > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor
revolt.
A
> couple > > of > > > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely.
And
you're
> > > >> persisting with your idée fixe. > > > >> > > > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
> The > > > >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran
editors.
Not
> > > newbies. > > > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully
complete an
> edit. > > > It > > > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > > > >> > > > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
> were > > > >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers.
But
then
> most > > > of > > > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community > arrogantly > > > >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as
an
> > ignorant, > > > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
> now. > > > >> > > > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and
they
have
> > > >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the
developers and
> the > > > >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > > > >> > > > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and
in
the
> > > concurrent > > > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from
Denny
> in > > > >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems
to me
> there > > > is > > > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs
addressing,
at
> least > > > over > > > >> at WikiData. > > > >> > > > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
> about > > > an > > > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking
down
to
> > > them or > > > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you
can't
> > > distinguish > > > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and > > well-founded > > > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your
technical
> > solutions > > > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than
those
WMF
> > > staffers > > > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good
career
move.
> > > >> > > > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
> and > > > your > > > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early
visual
> > > editor > > > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. > > > >> > > > >> Anthony Cole > > > >> > > > >> > > > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > > > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > > > >> wrote: > > > >> > > > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do
the
> basic > > > >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the
same
> time. > > > We > > > >> do > > > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
> If > > we > > > >> can > > > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use
it,
it
is
> a > > > >> success > > > >> > for us. > > > >> > > > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) > > > >> > > > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel < > email@mikepeel.net> > > > >> wrote: > > > >> > > > > >> > > > > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < > > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com > > > >> > > > > >> > > wrote: > > > >> > > > > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be
overly
> > > >> > enthusiastic. I > > > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better
how to
> > handle > > > new > > > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic > > functionality, > > > but > > > >> > > > working smoothly first. > > > >> > > > > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
> to > > > make > > > >> > > here. :-/ > > > >> > > > > > >> > > Thanks, > > > >> > > Mike > > > >> > > _______________________________________________ > > > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > >> > >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
> > > >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > >> > > Unsubscribe: > > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > > ?subject=unsubscribe> > > > >> > _______________________________________________ > > > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > >> > Unsubscribe: > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > > , > > > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > ?subject=unsubscribe> > > > >> > > > > >> _______________________________________________ > > > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > >> Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > > , > > > >> mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > > Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > > > > > > > > > -- > > > André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
> , > > > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
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>
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Thanks Peter. It's not my work, I put it out to tender at Village Pump (technical) and User:Makyen took it and did it. (It doesn't seem to be working now, though.) I'm pretty confident it's technically possible to make it accessible (readable by JAWS [1]) now. What's missing is the WMF's decision to invest in reliability. Reliability, I'm discovering, is the thing that must not be named. "We tried fixing reliability. Remember Nupedia? Hahahahahahaha."
Magnus: I think we agree both ratios (Wikipedia's and Wikidata's) have a long way to go. :o)
TTS: Yes. Why not? A simple button that smoothly reads an article to me, like a podcast, with fast forward and rewind or skip, while I do the dishes would be cool. I hope they're not going to try to re-invent JAWS, though.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 5:31 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
I like this for the interface, and as you said for the screen reading function. I hear WMF is working on some TTS thing now?
Not sure it would significantly alter my ratios at the moment, especially given its rather low takeup (i presume). In your example, it would actually make the ratio worse for Wikipedia, providing evidence for more than one statement per sentence ;-)
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 6:53 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ugh. This: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2#Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:51 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Ugh.I just edited the page and now it's not working. Try this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:Ref_supports2/Example
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:42 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph."
Check
out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what
each
reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool
tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that
screen
readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those
at
the
end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of
references
at
the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my
point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences
after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote
marker
supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at
the
beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as
unsourced
statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically
discern
what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement
numbers.
So
is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where
my
statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe
I
could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care
:-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor
referencing.
Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things).
That
is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com>
wrote:
> Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of
you
only
> counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the
end
of
> paragraphs. > > And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a
paragraph
if, > as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a
paragraph
often
> supports all statements in the paragraph? > > Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact? > > Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in
his
> response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading
because,
> provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable
source
in
the > body of an article, citations are not expected or required in en.Wikipedia > article leads. > > Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating Wikipedia's > lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the > reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is > appalling. > > Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
> You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's
true
but
> still an invalid argument. > > It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument. > > Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding
references
is > difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it
is
easy
> to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than
adding
> them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you? > > You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the
media
viewer
> and visual editor was the stoopid power users. > > Anthony Cole > > > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < > magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote: > >> On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com>
>> wrote: >> >> > Hi Magnus. >> > >> > I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to
an
essay
>> [1] >> > earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were >> addressing >> > me. >> > >> > Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You describe >> a >> > formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by
reliable
>> sources. >> > Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
>> > contains one statement of fact and compare the number of
sentences
with >> the >> > number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
>> per >> > statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving
at
the
RPS >> > ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios
of
>> > en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
>> > Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter
comparison.
>> > >> >> Correct. >> >> > >> > Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio
because
>> whole >> > paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote
marker
appears >> > only once at the end of the paragraph. >> > >> >> Which is why I am counting reference markers within the
paragraphs,
not
>> references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-) >> >> Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia
articles
is
low >> (and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first
sentence
at
>> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams >> This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last
name,
>> birth >> date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three >> occupations). >> But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one
sentence.
This >> reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of >> references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
>> thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia. >> >> > >> > But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a
wiki
it
>> should >> > be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very
valid
>> > arguments. >> > >> >> I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't
put
them
>> in >> my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that. >> >> >> > >> > The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard
and
others >> > that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If >> > that is so, you should fix that. >> > >> >> Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly
not
more
>> difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and >> drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little
fiiddly
to
add >> book references, but still reasoably possible. >> What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But
pick
a
random >> Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can
be
>> referenced to URLs. But this takes time. >> Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years,
Wikidata
is
>> referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
>> one >> thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and
references in
>> particular, will improve over time. >> So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing
references",
I
say: >> 1. You're wrong (it's already OK) >> 2. Patience (it will get even better) >> >> Cheers, >> Magnus >> >> >> > >> > >> > >> > 1. http://magnusmanske.de/wordpress/?p=378 >> > >> > Anthony Cole >> > >> > >> > On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
>> > wrote: >> > >> > > The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of
the
"it's
>> > > new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a
crowd
>> > > exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is
behind
it, >> > > as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the
community who
>> > > had a negative opinion about the first released version of
visual
>> > > editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements.
Which I
had
to >> > > be, because I know you have done many good things. >> > > >> > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your
average
>> > > Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software engineering >> > > skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if
they
did, >> > > they would not have the power to make their repairs go life
in
short
>> > > term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining
about
that,
>> > > it is entirely logical and doing it differently would
probably
cause
>> > > disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug
reports
>> > > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. >> > > >> > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
>> > > in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
>> > > see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues
are so
>> > > large that they do not want the product at all *until they
are
>> > > resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but
also
>> > > forcing the product on them in the period between the
discovery
of
the >> > > issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is >> > > instrumental in turning the objections against specific
issues
into
>> > > resistance against the product as a whole. >> > > >> > > >> > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske >> > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: >> > > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote
in
this
>> > > thread. I >> > > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is
deserved,
and
I >> do >> > > well >> > > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation,
was not
>> > quite >> > > up >> > > > to the job. >> > > > >> > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
>> or >> > > > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing
worthless,
even
>> > > > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This
behaviour, I
have
>> seen >> > > time >> > > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. >> > > > >> > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix
it.
>> > > > >> > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And
new.
And
Not >> > Made >> > > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. >> > > > >> > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> >> > > wrote: >> > > > >> > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor
revolt.
A
>> couple >> > of >> > > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely.
And
you're >> > > >> persisting with your idée fixe. >> > > >> >> > > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
>> The >> > > >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran
editors.
Not
>> > > newbies. >> > > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully
complete an
>> edit. >> > > It >> > > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. >> > > >> >> > > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
>> were >> > > >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers.
But
then
>> most >> > > of >> > > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the
community
>> arrogantly >> > > >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product
as
an
>> > ignorant, >> > > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
>> now. >> > > >> >> > > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and
they
have >> > > >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the
developers and
>> the >> > > >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might
have.
>> > > >> >> > > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and
in
the
>> > > concurrent >> > > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and
from
Denny
>> in >> > > >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it
seems
to me
>> there >> > > is >> > > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs
addressing,
at
>> least >> > > over >> > > >> at WikiData. >> > > >> >> > > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
>> about >> > > an >> > > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in
talking
down
to >> > > them or >> > > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you
can't
>> > > distinguish >> > > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns
and
>> > well-founded >> > > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your
technical
>> > solutions >> > > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than
those
WMF >> > > staffers >> > > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good
career
move. >> > > >> >> > > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, >> and >> > > your >> > > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the
early
visual >> > > editor >> > > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. >> > > >> >> > > >> Anthony Cole >> > > >> >> > > >> >> > > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < >> > > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> >> > > >> wrote: >> > > >> >> > > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you
do
the
>> basic >> > > >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at
the
same
>> time. >> > > We >> > > >> do >> > > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. >> If >> > we >> > > >> can >> > > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use
it,
it
is >> a >> > > >> success >> > > >> > for us. >> > > >> > >> > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) >> > > >> > >> > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel < >> email@mikepeel.net> >> > > >> wrote: >> > > >> > >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < >> > > magnusmanske@googlemail.com >> > > >> > >> > > >> > > wrote: >> > > >> > > > >> > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be
overly
>> > > >> > enthusiastic. I >> > > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better
how to
>> > handle >> > > new >> > > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic >> > functionality, >> > > but >> > > >> > > > working smoothly first. >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a
good
example >> to >> > > make >> > > >> > > here. :-/ >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > Thanks, >> > > >> > > Mike >> > > >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > >> > >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>> > > >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > >> > > Unsubscribe: >> > > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > > > ?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > >> >
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines
>> > > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > >> > Unsubscribe: >> > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> > > , >> > > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > > ?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > >> > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ >> > > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > >> Unsubscribe: >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> > , >> > > >> mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org > ?subject=unsubscribe> >> > > > _______________________________________________ >> > > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > > Unsubscribe: >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe >> > > >> > > >> > > >> > > -- >> > > André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com >> > > >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l >> , >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe >> > > >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe:
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That would be a useful feature in the long term Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Cole Sent: Saturday, 12 March 2016 8:42 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor referencing. Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references
in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK) 2. Patience (it will get even
better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of community is behind
it,
as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the community
who
had a negative opinion about the first released version of visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. Which I had
to
be, because I know you have done many good things.
And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the software
engineering
skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if they
did,
they would not have the power to make their repairs go life in
short
term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining about
that,
it is entirely logical and doing it differently would probably
cause
disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them.
I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues are
so
large that they do not want the product at all *until they are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, but also forcing the product on them in the period between the discovery of
the
issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
instrumental in turning the objections against specific issues
into
resistance against the product as a whole.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote > in
this
thread. I > have no problem with specific criticism where it is > deserved,
and
I
do
well > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, > was
not
quite
up > to the job. > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or
> early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing > worthless,
even
> dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, > I
have
seen
time > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. > And
Not
Made
> Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote: > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor >> revolt. A
couple
of
>> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. >> And
you're
>> persisting with your idée fixe. >> >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The
>> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
newbies. >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully >> complete
an
edit.
It >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. >> >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were
>> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. >> But
then
most
of >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
>> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as >> an
ignorant,
>> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now.
>> >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and >> they
have
>> fostered a much healthier relationship between the >> developers
and
the
>> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. >> >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and >> in
the
concurrent >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and >> from
Denny
in
>> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems >> to
me
there
is >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs >> addressing, at
least
over >> at WikiData. >> >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about
an >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in >> talking
down
to
them or >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you >> can't distinguish >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and
well-founded
>> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your >> technical
solutions
>> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than >> those
WMF
staffers >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good >> career
move.
>> >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and
your >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the >> early
visual
editor >> and its launch are both very disappointing. >> >> Anthony Cole >> >> >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> >> wrote: >> >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you >> > do the
basic
>> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at >> > the
same
time.
We >> do >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If
we
>> can >> > present the product in such a way that more people use >> > it, it
is
a
>> success >> > for us. >> > >> > I do stand by my example :-) >> > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
>> wrote: >> > >> > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com >> > >> > > wrote: >> > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be >> > > > overly >> > enthusiastic. I >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better >> > > > how
to
handle
new >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic
functionality,
but >> > > > working smoothly first. >> > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to
make >> > > here. :-/ >> > > >> > > Thanks, >> > > Mike >> > > _______________________________________________ >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelin >> > > es New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe >> > _______________________________________________ >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
, >> > <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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?subject=unsubscribe>
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-- André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com
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I'd use it for most of my citations if it also worked for users of screen readers. But I can't bring myself to add a feature to an article that isn't accessible by the sight impaired.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:59 AM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
That would be a useful feature in the long term Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Cole Sent: Saturday, 12 March 2016 8:42 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are
missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in
favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor
referencing.
Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references
in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK) 2. Patience (it will get even
better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of the
"it's
> new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a > crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of > community is behind
it,
> as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the > community
who
> had a negative opinion about the first released version of > visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. > Which I had
to
> be, because I know you have done many good things. > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your > average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the > software
engineering
> skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even if > they
did,
> they would not have the power to make their repairs go life > in
short
> term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining > about
that,
> it is entirely logical and doing it differently would > probably
cause
> disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug reports > etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way of
working
> in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those issues > are
so
> large that they do not want the product at all *until they > are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, > but also forcing the product on them in the period between > the discovery of
the
> issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> instrumental in turning the objections against specific > issues
into
> resistance against the product as a whole. > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote > > in
this
> thread. I > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is > > deserved,
and
I
do
> well > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early incarnation, > > was
not
quite > up > > to the job. > > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or
> > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing > > worthless,
even
> > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This behaviour, > > I
have
seen
> time > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. > > And
Not
Made > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> wrote: > > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor > >> revolt. A
couple
of > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. > >> And
you're
> >> persisting with your idée fixe. > >> > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The
> >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
> newbies. > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully > >> complete
an
edit.
> It > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > >> > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were
> >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. > >> But
then
most
> of > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community
arrogantly
> >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as > >> an ignorant, > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now.
> >> > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and > >> they
have
> >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the > >> developers
and
the
> >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > >> > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and > >> in
the
> concurrent > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and > >> from
Denny
in
> >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems > >> to
me
there
> is > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs > >> addressing, at
least
> over > >> at WikiData. > >> > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about
> an > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in > >> talking
down
to
> them or > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you > >> can't > distinguish > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your > >> technical solutions > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than > >> those
WMF
> staffers > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good > >> career
move.
> >> > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his
project,
and
> your > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the > >> early
visual
> editor > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. > >> > >> Anthony Cole > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > >> wrote: > >> > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you > >> > do the
basic
> >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at > >> > the
same
time.
> We > >> do > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our
product.
If
we > >> can > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use > >> > it, it
is
a
> >> success > >> > for us. > >> > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) > >> > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
> >> wrote: > >> > > >> > > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < > magnusmanske@googlemail.com > >> > > >> > > wrote: > >> > > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be > >> > > > overly > >> > enthusiastic. I > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands better > >> > > > how
to
handle > new > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, > but > >> > > > working smoothly first. > >> > > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good
example
to
> make > >> > > here. :-/ > >> > > > >> > > Thanks, > >> > > Mike > >> > > _______________________________________________ > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelin > >> > > es New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > > Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe> > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > , > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
, > >> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
> > > > -- > André Engels, andreengels@gmail.com > > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
,
> <mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org
?subject=unsubscribe>
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Maybe it will become accessible with future technology, in which case your work would not be wasted. Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Cole Sent: Saturday, 12 March 2016 9:06 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
I'd use it for most of my citations if it also worked for users of screen readers. But I can't bring myself to add a feature to an article that isn't accessible by the sight impaired.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 2:59 AM, Peter Southwood < peter.southwood@telkomsa.net> wrote:
That would be a useful feature in the long term Cheers, Peter
-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Anthony Cole Sent: Saturday, 12 March 2016 8:42 PM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Subject: Re: [Wikimedia-l] Profile of Magnus Manske
Regarding "Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph." Check out the first paragraph and its references here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Victoria_and_Albert_Museum_Spiral.
Hovering your mouse over each footnote marker (or, depending on your MediaWiki preferences, the dotted line under it) will tell you what each reference is supporting. The ideal solution would be highlighting the supported text on the page, rather than having it appear in a tool tip.
I wish the WMF would organise that - and organise it in a way that screen readers can read it.
Anthony Cole
On Sun, Mar 13, 2016 at 1:57 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:18 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Ah. You mean you're counting all footnote markers (including those at the end of paragraphs). You're not just counting the number of references at the bottom of the page. Yes I saw that. But you are
missing my point.
Many
editors use one footnote marker to support all the sentences in a paragraph. Many use one footnote marker to support all sentences after
the
last footnote marker.
There are many multi-sentence paragraphs in https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cancer_pain with just one footnote marker supporting all the sentences. Using your metric, the sentences at the beginning and middle of those paragraphs would be counted as unsourced statements.
Yes. Unless I missed it, there is no good way to automatically discern what a <ref> refers to - a word, a sentence, a paragraph. As described, my "one sentence, one statement" metric is a lower bound of statement numbers. So is my <ref> count, then. I am certain you can find an article where my statement-to-reference ratio is off against WIkipedia; but I believe I could find more instances where it is in
favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, who cares? The whole thing is a non-argument. It just
doesn't
matter which project is more poorly referenced.
Well, considering the amount you write about it, apparently you care :-)
My argument, and I believe I made this reasonably solid, is that one can't "sit on Wikipedia", pointing finders at Wikidata for poor
referencing.
Which is what Andreas Kolbe implicitly did (amongst other things). That is all.
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 11:59 PM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, I've just re-scanned your essay and don't see mention of you
only
counting footnote markers within the paragraphs and not at the end of paragraphs.
And why wouldn't you count a footnote marker at the end of a paragraph
if,
as I've just explained, the sole citation at the end of a paragraph
often
supports all statements in the paragraph?
Why would you assume one sentence only contains one fact?
Choosing a lead sentence as your example - Denny did the same in his response to Andreas's critique - is potentially misleading because, provided statements are repeated and supported by a reliable source in
the
body of an article, citations are not expected or required in
en.Wikipedia
article leads.
Your methodology is flawed; fatally biased toward exaggerating
Wikipedia's
lack of references. But. I really don't care because I think the reliability of Wikipedia and level of referencing in Wikipedia is appalling.
Forgive me for mischaracterising your argument as, ""Wikipedia is
worse".
You appear to be saying, "Well, Wikipedia is bad, too." That's true but still an invalid argument.
It was someone else who put the "It's a wiki" argument.
Several of your colleagues above have complained that adding references
is
difficult in Wikidata. And your response is what? "Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia." Please listen to people, will you?
You still seem to think the problem with the roll-out of the media
viewer
and visual editor was the stoopid power users.
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 10:11 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 12:27 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Hi Magnus.
I'm re-reading this thread and just noticed you linked me to an
essay
[1]
earlier. I'm sorry, I didn't realise at the time that you were
addressing
me.
Comments have closed there, so I'll post my thoughts here. You
describe
a
formula for measuring how well Wikipedia is supported by reliable
sources.
Basically, correct me if this is wrong, you presume that each
sentence
contains one statement of fact and compare the number of sentences
with
the
number of footnote markers. That ratio is what you call the
references
per
statement (RPS) ratio. You have another formula for arriving at the
RPS
ratio for Wikidata statements. You then compare the RPS ratios of en.Wikipedia featured articles with the RPS ratios of their
associated
Wikidata items. And drew conclusions from that latter comparison.
Correct.
Many of the Wikipedia articles I write have a low RPS ratio because
whole
paragraphs are supported by one reference, whose footnote marker
appears
only once at the end of the paragraph.
Which is why I am counting reference markers within the paragraphs,
not
references at the end. Every <ref> is sacred ;-)
Actually, I think my statement count for entire Wikipedia articles is
low
(and thus, favourable to Wikipedia). Take jsut the first sentence at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Douglas_Adams This sentence alone contains nine statements (first names, last name, birth date, death date, nationality, the fact he's human, and three occupations). But I would only count that as one statement, as it is one sentence.
This
reduces the number of statements I count in the article, but the
number
of
references (btw, only one in the entire lead section) remains
constant,
thus pushing the RPS ratio in favour of Wikipedia.
But, really, it doesn't matter. The arguments that "it's a wiki it
should
be unreliable", or "Wikipedia is worse" are not really very valid arguments.
I agree. Which is why I never made such arguments. Please don't put
them
in my mouth; I don't know you well enough for that.
The sound argument coming from above is the cry from Gerrard and
others
that it is hideously difficult to add citations to Wikidata
sources.
If
that is so, you should fix that.
Actually, it is easy to add references to Wikidata, certainly not more difficult than adding them to Wikipedia. I have written bots and drag'n'drop scripts to make it even easier. It is a little fiiddly to
add
book references, but still reasoably possible. What /is/ difficult is to do this automatically, by bot. But pick a
random
Wikidata entry, and with a little googling, many statements can be referenced to URLs. But this takes time. Which brings me back to my blog post: Even after ~3 years, Wikidata is referenced not too badly, compared to Wikipedia. And if we have
learned
one thing from Wikipedia, it is that the state in general, and references
in
particular, will improve over time. So to everyone who disses Wikidata because of "missing references", I
say:
- You're wrong (it's already OK) 2. Patience (it will get even
better)
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Sat, Mar 12, 2016 at 4:37 PM, Andre Engels <
andreengels@gmail.com>
wrote:
> The issue is that you are framing all objections to be of > the
"it's
> new, so it's bad" crowd. I'm not even convinced that such a > crowd exists, let alone that it is the mainstream of > community is behind
it,
> as you seem to imply. To be honest, as a member of the > community
who
> had a negative opinion about the first released version of > visual editor, I feel personally insulted by your statements. > Which I had
to
> be, because I know you have done many good things. > > And how would you want to "come together and fix it"? Your > average Wikipedia/other project editor does not have the > software
engineering
> skills to just go and repair the Mediawiki code, and even > if they
did,
> they would not have the power to make their repairs go life > in
short
> term (and before I'm misunderstood, I am not complaining > about
that,
> it is entirely logical and doing it differently would > probably
cause
> disasters). They can of course complain, and file bug > reports etcetera, but they have no idea what will happen with them. > > I think a big part of the blame lies with Wikimedia's way > of
working
> in this, at least that's what I see in the Imageviewer case.
People
> see issues, and want them resolved. But some of those > issues are
so
> large that they do not want the product at all *until they > are resolved*. By not only using the user as a beta tester, > but also forcing the product on them in the period between > the discovery of
the
> issues/bugs and the time they are resolved, Wikimedia in my
opinion
is
> instrumental in turning the objections against specific > issues
into
> resistance against the product as a whole. > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:56 PM, Magnus Manske > magnusmanske@googlemail.com wrote: > > Anthony, it does seem you've missed some of which I wrote > > in
this
> thread. I > > have no problem with specific criticism where it is > > deserved,
and
I
do
> well > > remember that the Visual Editor, in its early > > incarnation, was
not
quite > up > > to the job. > > > > What I do have a problem with is people fixating on some
technical
or
> > early-lifecycle issues, declaring the entire thing > > worthless,
even
> > dangerous, and spreading that view around. This > > behaviour, I
have
seen
> time > > and again, with the Media Viewer, with Wikidata. > > > > It's bad because it's broken - let's come together and fix it. > > > > It's bad because ... well, everyone says it's bad. And new. > > And
Not
Made > > Here. THAT is a problem, and not a technological one. > > > > On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 2:39 PM Anthony Cole <
ahcoleecu@gmail.com
> wrote: > > > >> Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor > >> revolt. A
couple
of > >> people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. > >> And
you're
> >> persisting with your idée fixe. > >> > >> There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe,
actually.
The
> >> product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors.
Not
> newbies. > >> Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully > >> complete
an
edit.
> It > >> was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it. > >> > >> The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few
editors
were
> >> unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. > >> But
then
most
> of > >> the developers and tech staff who dealt with the > >> community
arrogantly
> >> characterised *anyone* who complained about the product > >> as an ignorant, > >> selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that
characterisation
now.
> >> > >> The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, > >> and they
have
> >> fostered a much healthier relationship between the > >> developers
and
the
> >> community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have. > >> > >> In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here > >> and in
the
> concurrent > >> thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and > >> from
Denny
in
> >> earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it > >> seems to
me
there
> is > >> still a significant arrogance problem that needs > >> addressing, at
least
> over > >> at WikiData. > >> > >> Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even
insultingly,
about
> an > >> innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in > >> talking
down
to
> them or > >> ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if > >> you can't > distinguish > >> them from those who approach you with genuine concerns > >> and well-founded > >> criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your > >> technical solutions > >> are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than > >> those
WMF
> staffers > >> who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good > >> career
move.
> >> > >> Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of > >> his
project,
and
> your > >> contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the > >> early
visual
> editor > >> and its launch are both very disappointing. > >> > >> Anthony Cole > >> > >> > >> On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < > >> magnusmanske@googlemail.com> > >> wrote: > >> > >> > The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you > >> > do the
basic
> >> > functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at > >> > the
same
time.
> We > >> do > >> > not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using > >> > our
product.
If
we > >> can > >> > present the product in such a way that more people use > >> > it, it
is
a
> >> success > >> > for us. > >> > > >> > I do stand by my example :-) > >> > > >> > On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel <
email@mikepeel.net>
> >> wrote: > >> > > >> > > > >> > > > On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske < > magnusmanske@googlemail.com > >> > > >> > > wrote: > >> > > > > >> > > > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be > >> > > > overly > >> > enthusiastic. I > >> > > > would hope the Foundation by now understands > >> > > > better how
to
handle > new > >> > > > software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, > but > >> > > > working smoothly first. > >> > > > >> > > But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a > >> > > good
example
to
> make > >> > > here. :-/ > >> > > > >> > > Thanks, > >> > > Mike > >> > > _______________________________________________ > >> > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidel > >> > > in es New messages to: > >> > > Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > > Unsubscribe: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, > >> > > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe> > >> > _______________________________________________ > >> > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelin > >> > es New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > , > >> > mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org ?subject=unsubscribe > >> > > >> _______________________________________________ > >> Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > >> https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > >> New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > >> Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
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?subject=unsubscribe>
> > _______________________________________________ > > Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines > > New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe:
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On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial complaints from 2013. He said, “condemning an entire product forever because the first version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.”
Magnus, in the interview you said "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change. For these editors, the site has worked fine for years; why change anything?"
Well, yes. No one here, I'm sure, will argue there aren't such groups.
But the problem with the blog post is you only mention them. You don't take into account the very much larger crowd, including myself, who were hanging out for the visual editor and were contemptuously flicked off by the developers when we brought up fatal flaws, as just some more superconservative no-vision Ludites - haters of change.
The first version of VE was so bad it was harming our mission. It was far worse than "didn't do everything 100% right." It would have been bounced back from the community to the developers even if that first group of bitter, change-hating autistic ranters hadn't said a word.
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia, yet above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What are we waiting for?
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial complaints from 2013. He said, “condemning an entire product forever because the first version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.” _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, in the interview you said "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change. For these editors, the site has worked fine for years; why change anything?"
Well, yes. No one here, I'm sure, will argue there aren't such groups.
But the problem with the blog post is you only mention them.
Because they are the problem, and they (by being vocal) often get more attention than a more silent, sensible majority. But by getting attention, they shape the general consensus, in a negative way.
You don't take into account the very much larger crowd, including myself, who were hanging out for the visual editor and were contemptuously flicked off by the developers when we brought up fatal flaws, as just some more superconservative no-vision Ludites - haters of change.
I am not going to get into a who-said-what-to-whom-in-what-tone discussion here. I wouldn't be surprised if some developers didn't bother to differentiate between sensible feedback and nay-sayers. As I have said in this mail thread, I hope the Foundation has learned how to deal with feedback more sensibly.
The first version of VE was so bad it was harming our mission. It was far worse than "didn't do everything 100% right." It would have been bounced back from the community to the developers even if that first group of bitter, change-hating autistic ranters hadn't said a word.
Consider this perspective: I doubt the developers would have pushed out that first version if it had massively failed their own tests. But at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality. Remember, WMF is not Microsoft, with an army of thousands of paid beta-testers.
So then it turns out there are more (and more really bad) bugs than anticipated. Then you go and fix those bugs. Which is what they did. But turning a major endeavour on and off repeatedly is just a bad thing to do. AFICT the window where wrong edits were made by VE was not /that/ large. Apparently, the decision was made to "power through it", rather than flip the switch repeatedly. That may or may not have been the right strategy.
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia, yet above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What are we waiting for?
This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial complaints from 2013. He said, “condemning an entire product forever because the
first
version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.” _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia,
yet
above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What
are
we waiting for?
This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
Folks, it is ON by default in English Wikipedia for new users who are logged in. But not for anons.
At the top of the articles now: "Read - Edit source - Edit - View History”
This was turned on late last year as a default for new users, to the delight of those who do GLAM training and edit-a-thons.
-Andrew
Excellent. Seems funny it's not the default for IPs.
Anthony Cole
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:21 AM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:58 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia,
yet
above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What
are
we waiting for?
This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
Folks, it is ON by default in English Wikipedia for new users who are logged in. But not for anons.
At the top of the articles now: "Read - Edit source - Edit - View History”
This was turned on late last year as a default for new users, to the delight of those who do GLAM training and edit-a-thons.
-Andrew _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality."
Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released. Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that. When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to pay attention.
I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:58 PM, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, in the interview you said "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent
change.
For these editors, the site has worked fine for years; why change anything?"
Well, yes. No one here, I'm sure, will argue there aren't such groups.
But the problem with the blog post is you only mention them.
Because they are the problem, and they (by being vocal) often get more attention than a more silent, sensible majority. But by getting attention, they shape the general consensus, in a negative way.
You don't take into account the very much larger crowd, including myself, who were
hanging
out for the visual editor and were contemptuously flicked off by the developers when we brought up fatal flaws, as just some more superconservative no-vision Ludites - haters of change.
I am not going to get into a who-said-what-to-whom-in-what-tone discussion here. I wouldn't be surprised if some developers didn't bother to differentiate between sensible feedback and nay-sayers. As I have said in this mail thread, I hope the Foundation has learned how to deal with feedback more sensibly.
The first version of VE was so bad it was harming our mission. It was far worse than "didn't do everything 100% right." It would have been bounced back from the community to the developers even if that first group of bitter, change-hating autistic ranters hadn't said a word.
Consider this perspective: I doubt the developers would have pushed out that first version if it had massively failed their own tests. But at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality. Remember, WMF is not Microsoft, with an army of thousands of paid beta-testers.
So then it turns out there are more (and more really bad) bugs than anticipated. Then you go and fix those bugs. Which is what they did. But turning a major endeavour on and off repeatedly is just a bad thing to do. AFICT the window where wrong edits were made by VE was not /that/ large. Apparently, the decision was made to "power through it", rather than flip the switch repeatedly. That may or may not have been the right strategy.
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia,
yet
above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What
are
we waiting for?
This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial complaints from 2013. He said, “condemning an entire product forever because the
first
version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.” _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Informative discussion. Thank you all. I knew the history here, but seeing it come alive from these various perspectives further clarified that history for me.
Thank you. /a
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality."
Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released. Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that. When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to pay attention.
I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 11:58 PM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 3:40 PM Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, in the interview you said "From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal
groups
of
editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent
change.
For these editors, the site has worked fine for years; why change anything?"
Well, yes. No one here, I'm sure, will argue there aren't such groups.
But the problem with the blog post is you only mention them.
Because they are the problem, and they (by being vocal) often get more attention than a more silent, sensible majority. But by getting
attention,
they shape the general consensus, in a negative way.
You don't take into account the very much larger crowd, including myself, who were
hanging
out for the visual editor and were contemptuously flicked off by the developers when we brought up fatal flaws, as just some more superconservative no-vision Ludites - haters of change.
I am not going to get into a who-said-what-to-whom-in-what-tone
discussion
here. I wouldn't be surprised if some developers didn't bother to differentiate between sensible feedback and nay-sayers. As I have said in this mail thread, I hope the Foundation has learned how to deal with feedback more sensibly.
The first version of VE was so bad it was harming our mission. It was
far
worse than "didn't do everything 100% right." It would have been
bounced
back from the community to the developers even if that first group of bitter, change-hating autistic ranters hadn't said a word.
Consider this perspective: I doubt the developers would have pushed out that first version if it had massively failed their own tests. But at
some
point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality. Remember, WMF is not Microsoft, with an army of
thousands
of paid beta-testers.
So then it turns out there are more (and more really bad) bugs than anticipated. Then you go and fix those bugs. Which is what they did. But turning a major endeavour on and off repeatedly is just a bad thing to
do.
AFICT the window where wrong edits were made by VE was not /that/ large. Apparently, the decision was made to "power through it", rather than flip the switch repeatedly. That may or may not have been the right strategy.
I notice VE isn't even an option when I log out and edit en.Wikipedia,
yet
above others are saying it is much improved and ready for release. What
are
we waiting for?
This is the thing. The atmosphere has been poisoned against VE, which now makes it much harder to get a good product deployed.
But I agree with the sentiment. What ARE we waiting for?
Cheers, Magnus
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 10:56 PM, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com
wrote:
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A
couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
To be fair, Magnus was addressing more than just the initial
complaints
from 2013. He said, “condemning an entire product forever because the
first
version didn’t do everything 100% right is just plain stupid.” _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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As it happens, I now like both VE and Image Viewer as optional features. I didn't appreciate how they were deployed.
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force Image VIewer on the communities was arrogant, disproportionate, politically unwise, and wasteful. Although WMF has backed off from this position a bit, it has never apologized for it AFAIK, and this is one in a number of experiences that is informing the community thinking about strategic alternatives to WMF.
Let me contrast this with Echo, which had some initial pains but was accepted by the community with relative ease. It's still one of my favorite features, and I look forward to its continued development.
Piine
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality."
Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released. Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that. When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to pay attention.
I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully.
Anthony Cole
Hello,
I can second more or less everything what Magnus said, and hope that the discussion about how to implement software improvements will go on in a productive way. I totally agree with Magnus and many others that these improvements are very much necessary - just think of Wikimedia Commons.
On one point I would like to mention what could be a serious cause for disagreement between "the Foundation" and "the community" (both aren't monolithic). Sometimes I experience that paid collaborators of the WMF or chapters perceive "the community" as a huge workforce, a steerable resource without limits, that can be made use of.
When the VE was introduced in 2013, some people from the WMF might have thought: "the community" has unlimited time to clean up the mess that is temporarily created by the VE. Using that resource is better than to wait with the introduction, as software development is costly.
But "the community" was unhappy to serve as beta testers and cleaning personnel, certainly without having been asked.
Adding insult to injury, during the VE introduction of 2013, one WMF collaborator said on a talk page: Don't forget your resistance is burning a lot of money. - It is a little strange to tell this to the people who are creating the income by their volunteer work.
With regard to the Media Viewer, in 2014, my opinion was different: the MV worked fairly well, serving to readers and to newbies. As long as I can turn it off (because it is rather slowing down my workflow than support it) I am happy with it.
Neither "the Foundation", neither "the community" is always right (or always wrong). It's that simple.
Kind regards Ziko
2016-01-19 18:53 GMT+01:00 Pine W wiki.pine@gmail.com:
As it happens, I now like both VE and Image Viewer as optional features. I didn't appreciate how they were deployed.
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force Image VIewer on the communities was arrogant, disproportionate, politically unwise, and wasteful. Although WMF has backed off from this position a bit, it has never apologized for it AFAIK, and this is one in a number of experiences that is informing the community thinking about strategic alternatives to WMF.
Let me contrast this with Echo, which had some initial pains but was accepted by the community with relative ease. It's still one of my favorite features, and I look forward to its continued development.
Piine
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 9:00 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, regarding, "...at some point, you have to leave the test environment, and test your product against reality."
Of course. But VE was far, far too bad for real time when it was released. Really. It was driving newbies away. The sensible embracers-of-change threw it out, in the end. The squealing Ludites don't have the numbers for that. When the sensible majority starts squealing, the developers really need to pay attention.
I didn't follow it carefully but it seemed to me the release of the Image Viewer was much better timed and handled. Ludites squealed but genuine concerns were addressed promptly and respectfully.
Anthony Cole
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
On 2016-01-19 12:53 PM, Pine W wrote:
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force Image VIewer on the communities [...]
... except that this is not what happened. While that narrative might be satisfying for someone who looks for a sense of being the stalwart defender of an oppressed community, the reality is that superprotect was created to block the deployment of a technically inapt and entirely broken "fix" that was - itself - a kneejerk reaction.
Which is not to say that its creation or use was wise in any way - it wasn't. But trying to reframe things in "oh, evil WMF did all wrong against the poor, innocent community" terms serves no purpose other than create a windmill to tilt at.
-- Marc
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 5:51 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 2016-01-19 12:53 PM, Pine W wrote:
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force Image VIewer on the communities [...]
... except that this is not what happened. While that narrative might be satisfying for someone who looks for a sense of being the stalwart defender of an oppressed community, the reality is that superprotect was created to block the deployment of a technically inapt and entirely broken "fix" that was - itself - a kneejerk reaction.
No, Marc. Your version is quite a stretch. According to Lila Tretikov -- the person responsible for rolling out Superprotect -- its legacy is that it established a "precedent of mistrust http://wikistrategies.net/superprotect-removed/."
It was deployed to block something, but the thing that was technically inept was the initial deployment of Media Viewer. Even if you (or WMF) disagreed, there was no real cost to the alternative of disabling it by default, with the possibility of fixing it and redeploying it.
Even now, more than a year later, independent news organizations and web sites frequently cite the wrong person when reusing Commons photos -- they cite the uploader, rather than the photographer. That bug (one of many) was caught, has now been fixed (in the last couple of weeks). It was caught by a photographer looking after his own attribution -- a photographer who did not sign the Superprotect letter, if that matters -- not by Wikimedia staff.
Media Viewer was deployed before it was ready. There was no benefit to doing so. Superprotect was deployed to reinforce that bad decision.
Which is not to say that its creation or use was wise in any way - it
wasn't. But trying to reframe things in "oh, evil WMF did all wrong against the poor, innocent community" terms serves no purpose other than create a windmill to tilt at.
The Wikimedia Foundation needs, first and foremost, to look after the principle and unique asset that gives the Wikimedia and Wikipedia brands value: its volunteer community. When the Wikimedia Foundation conducts itself in a way that leads to division, it's damaging our shared vision, and it needs to be held accountable. None of that is to say that the Wikimedia Foundation should give way before a mob of pitchfork-wielding anarchists; but to the repeated suggestion that that's what the community (or those opposed to any specific software deployment) is, I say:
Citation needed.
-Pete [[User:Peteforsyth]] Author of letter objecting to Superprotect: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Letter_to_Wikimedia_Foundation:_Superprotect...
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 2016-01-19 12:53 PM, Pine W wrote:
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to force Image VIewer on the communities [...]
... except that this is not what happened. While that narrative might be satisfying for someone who looks for a sense of being the stalwart defender of an oppressed community, the reality is that superprotect was created to block the deployment of a technically inapt and entirely broken "fix" that was - itself - a kneejerk reaction.
Which is not to say that its creation or use was wise in any way - it wasn't. But trying to reframe things in "oh, evil WMF did all wrong against the poor, innocent community" terms serves no purpose other than create a windmill to tilt at.
It is comments like this from WMF staff which make me think that WMF has not yet really internalised the reason why VE, MV, etc. were such a problem.
On 20 January 2016 at 22:08, John Mark Vandenberg jayvdb@gmail.com wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:51 PM, Marc A. Pelletier marc@uberbox.org wrote:
On 2016-01-19 12:53 PM, Pine W wrote:
The constitutional crisis that WMF created by using Superprotect to
force
Image VIewer on the communities [...]
... except that this is not what happened. While that narrative might be satisfying for someone who looks for a sense of being the stalwart
defender
of an oppressed community, the reality is that superprotect was created
to
block the deployment of a technically inapt and entirely broken "fix"
that
was - itself - a kneejerk reaction.
Which is not to say that its creation or use was wise in any way - it wasn't. But trying to reframe things in "oh, evil WMF did all wrong
against
the poor, innocent community" terms serves no purpose other than create a windmill to tilt at.
It is comments like this from WMF staff which make me think that WMF has not yet really internalised the reason why VE, MV, etc. were such a problem.
Marc is not a member of the WMF staff.
Risker/Anne
On 2016-01-20 10:09 PM, Risker wrote:
Marc is not a member of the WMF staff.
[anymore].
But yeah, that was my personal opinion only and not any sort of staff-like thing - I was never involved in superprotect or its deployment.
I was hacking happily at Wikimania in London when I saw (a) parts of dewiki go insane over the media viewer followed by (b) parts of WMF go insane over the parts of dewiki going insane. Hilarity ensued. My own reaction at the time, if I recall correctly, was "what an idiot" followed by "is [Erik] insane? That is the single worst way of handling this". Both were accompanied with copious facepalms.
-- Marc
Once the VisualEditor was fit for purpose and a good deployment strategy had been developed, the English Wikipedia community overwhelmingly supported rolling it out. ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_125... )
It's not Luddism, it's not "resistance to change", it's not "power users" grumpy about newbies having an easier time, it's not anything like that. It's that in the state it was initially released in, the thing did not work.
So yes, by all means, let's try new things. But try:
1: Asking us what we actually want, before coding something up and feeling obligated to push it out. People are a lot more receptive to something they asked for than something being forced upon them. That's been an issue with Flow. It's not that it doesn't work well (though it doesn't), it's that it wasn't wanted to start with. So instead of "Here's the new discussion system", ask "What can we do to make our system of discussion better?"
2: Make sure it works. Have an opt-in beta phase. Doesn't have to be perfect, but certainly make sure it's not breaking page formatting all over the place. You'll notice, for example, that there wasn't really any resistance to HHVM. It worked well, it was desirable, it was clearly fit for purpose. So no, there isn't just a reflexive change aversion. Though the previous missteps and hamfisted followups have, rather ironically, created a lot of the reflexive change aversion that people said was there.
3: Be nice (but NOT condescending or patronizing) if an issue comes up. "Superprotect" alienated people right quickly, and turned what could have been a productive (if tense) conversation into a war. Same with refusal to budge on VE and the arrogant tone several people took. Yes, some people might be rude about objecting to the change. Don't sink to their level. If they call the new software a steaming pile, ask "Could you offer more concrete feedback?"
4: Don't surprise people. Not everyone follows the Village Pumps or what have you. If a major new feature is set to roll out, do banners, do watchlist notices, do whatever it takes, but make sure people know. When Mediaviewer was rolled out, all of a sudden, I was just having images act completely different. I had no idea what was going on. People are more amenable to change if you brace them for it. Even better, do that to develop a rollout strategy in advance with the community. (You already know they want it; they asked for it. Right?)
5: If at all feasible, offer an easy opt-out. People are actually more likely to give something a decent try if they know they can switch back if they don't like it.
6: Show willingness to budge. "No, we won't do ACTRIAL, period." "You get VE, like it or not." "You're getting Mediaviewer even if we have to develop a new protection level to cram it down your throats!" That type of hamfisted, I'm-right-you're-wrong approach will gear people right up for a fight. Fights are bad. Discussions are good. But people don't like to talk to a brick wall.
Many of us were asking for a WYSIWYG editor for some time, because we very much need a way to reach out to prospective editors who are intimidated by wikimarkup or just don't care to learn it. So it wasn't that we were opposed to VE in principle. Good idea, bad execution.
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the concurrent thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least over at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them or ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't distinguish them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF staffers who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and your contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle new software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality, but working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to make here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:58 AM Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Once the VisualEditor was fit for purpose and a good deployment strategy had been developed, the English Wikipedia community overwhelmingly supported rolling it out. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_125... )
That is for new accounts only. Without an account, still no VE for you, even if you are probably the one needing it most.
It's not Luddism, it's not "resistance to change", it's not "power users" grumpy about newbies having an easier time, it's not anything like that. It's that in the state it was initially released in, the thing did not work.
No one said "Luddism", except to defend against its use. Odd.
So yes, by all means, let's try new things. But try:
1: Asking us what we actually want, before coding something up and feeling obligated to push it out. People are a lot more receptive to something they asked for than something being forced upon them. That's been an issue with Flow. It's not that it doesn't work well (though it doesn't), it's that it wasn't wanted to start with. So instead of "Here's the new discussion system", ask "What can we do to make our system of discussion better?"
Listening to what editors want is important. ONLY listening to wad editors want is bad. People often don't know what they want or need, until they see it. Compare the famous (possibly misattributed) Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Also, veteran editors do not represent the readers or casual/newbie editors; their needs are often quite different.
2: Make sure it works. Have an opt-in beta phase. Doesn't have to be perfect, but certainly make sure it's not breaking page formatting all over the place. You'll notice, for example, that there wasn't really any resistance to HHVM. It worked well, it was desirable, it was clearly fit for purpose. So no, there isn't just a reflexive change aversion. Though the previous missteps and hamfisted followups have, rather ironically, created a lot of the reflexive change aversion that people said was there.
Wrong example. The HHMV switch was a back-end change that should have had no visible effect. As long as the servers are fast, people don't really care what's going on there. Did e.g. English Wikipedia actually vote on HHMV?
3: Be nice (but NOT condescending or patronizing) if an issue comes up. "Superprotect" alienated people right quickly, and turned what could have been a productive (if tense) conversation into a war. Same with refusal to budge on VE and the arrogant tone several people took. Yes, some people might be rude about objecting to the change. Don't sink to their level. If they call the new software a steaming pile, ask "Could you offer more concrete feedback?"
Superprotect was used to revert an admin action on de.wikipedia, an action that might actually fall under U.S. or German computer sabotage laws. This was hailed as some heroic action by that vocal group I keep mentioning, when it can easily be seen as someone abusing the privileges given by the Foundation (as owners of the servers) to deactivate functionality put in place by the Foundation. The creation and subsequent use of superprotect was not exactly the most wise decision ever undertaken, but neither was the original sabotage (literally so; using access to a machine to stop it from working, just not using a wooden shoe). And while it is always good to ask for more concrete feedback, it is even better to offer it to begin with.
4: Don't surprise people. Not everyone follows the Village Pumps or what have you. If a major new feature is set to roll out, do banners, do watchlist notices, do whatever it takes, but make sure people know. When Mediaviewer was rolled out, all of a sudden, I was just having images act completely different. I had no idea what was going on. People are more amenable to change if you brace them for it. Even better, do that to develop a rollout strategy in advance with the community. (You already know they want it; they asked for it. Right?)
The Foundation appears to be doing this already. I even saw a mail about it today.
5: If at all feasible, offer an easy opt-out. People are actually more likely to give something a decent try if they know they can switch back if they don't like it.
IIRC, both VE and MediaViewer offered opt-out from the beginning; the MV opt-out just was "below the fold" or something.
6: Show willingness to budge. "No, we won't do ACTRIAL, period." "You get VE, like it or not." "You're getting Mediaviewer even if we have to develop a new protection level to cram it down your throats!" That type of hamfisted, I'm-right-you're-wrong approach will gear people right up for a fight. Fights are bad. Discussions are good. But people don't like to talk to a brick wall.
Everyone (as in, the vast majority of people I ever spoke to, approaching 100%) agreed that Wikipedia editing, especially for newbies, sucked. Everyone agreed that what happened when clicking on a file in Wikipedia was confusing for most readers. These are not issues the Foundation just made up in some ivory tower; there was little dispute that something should be done. So the Foundation did, and switched their solution on, for everyone, because most users are "just" readers, not editors, and see an actual improvement. Neiter VE nor MV was perfect in the beginning; neither is now. They just got better over time. So MV is active for everyone, including IPs, even on German Wikipedia, right now. Because it's beeter for most people, and it works. Why did it need to be completely switch off again?
Many of us were asking for a WYSIWYG editor for some time, because we very much need a way to reach out to prospective editors who are intimidated by wikimarkup or just don't care to learn it. So it wasn't that we were opposed to VE in principle. Good idea, bad execution.
As someone who has worked on alternative Wikitext parsers, and alternative interfaces, rest assured that the execution was quite good for an initial version. As I said before, it is impossible to get this perfect right away. Just like it is impossible (literally, as in "not possible") to reliably get the license for an image in MV on all cases. The community/vocal group needs to show some patience when developers are trying their best to get a giant project up and running smoothy.
Cheers, Magnus
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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You just don't get it, do you? Even from the start this was all about social issues with rollouts, and still you are contributing to the very same social problems you so blindly condemned.
-I
On 20/01/16 14:16, Magnus Manske wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:58 AM Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com wrote:
Once the VisualEditor was fit for purpose and a good deployment strategy had been developed, the English Wikipedia community overwhelmingly supported rolling it out. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_125... )
That is for new accounts only. Without an account, still no VE for you, even if you are probably the one needing it most.
It's not Luddism, it's not "resistance to change", it's not "power users" grumpy about newbies having an easier time, it's not anything like that. It's that in the state it was initially released in, the thing did not work.
No one said "Luddism", except to defend against its use. Odd.
So yes, by all means, let's try new things. But try:
1: Asking us what we actually want, before coding something up and feeling obligated to push it out. People are a lot more receptive to something they asked for than something being forced upon them. That's been an issue with Flow. It's not that it doesn't work well (though it doesn't), it's that it wasn't wanted to start with. So instead of "Here's the new discussion system", ask "What can we do to make our system of discussion better?"
Listening to what editors want is important. ONLY listening to wad editors want is bad. People often don't know what they want or need, until they see it. Compare the famous (possibly misattributed) Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Also, veteran editors do not represent the readers or casual/newbie editors; their needs are often quite different.
2: Make sure it works. Have an opt-in beta phase. Doesn't have to be perfect, but certainly make sure it's not breaking page formatting all over the place. You'll notice, for example, that there wasn't really any resistance to HHVM. It worked well, it was desirable, it was clearly fit for purpose. So no, there isn't just a reflexive change aversion. Though the previous missteps and hamfisted followups have, rather ironically, created a lot of the reflexive change aversion that people said was there.
Wrong example. The HHMV switch was a back-end change that should have had no visible effect. As long as the servers are fast, people don't really care what's going on there. Did e.g. English Wikipedia actually vote on HHMV?
3: Be nice (but NOT condescending or patronizing) if an issue comes up. "Superprotect" alienated people right quickly, and turned what could have been a productive (if tense) conversation into a war. Same with refusal to budge on VE and the arrogant tone several people took. Yes, some people might be rude about objecting to the change. Don't sink to their level. If they call the new software a steaming pile, ask "Could you offer more concrete feedback?"
Superprotect was used to revert an admin action on de.wikipedia, an action that might actually fall under U.S. or German computer sabotage laws. This was hailed as some heroic action by that vocal group I keep mentioning, when it can easily be seen as someone abusing the privileges given by the Foundation (as owners of the servers) to deactivate functionality put in place by the Foundation. The creation and subsequent use of superprotect was not exactly the most wise decision ever undertaken, but neither was the original sabotage (literally so; using access to a machine to stop it from working, just not using a wooden shoe). And while it is always good to ask for more concrete feedback, it is even better to offer it to begin with.
4: Don't surprise people. Not everyone follows the Village Pumps or what have you. If a major new feature is set to roll out, do banners, do watchlist notices, do whatever it takes, but make sure people know. When Mediaviewer was rolled out, all of a sudden, I was just having images act completely different. I had no idea what was going on. People are more amenable to change if you brace them for it. Even better, do that to develop a rollout strategy in advance with the community. (You already know they want it; they asked for it. Right?)
The Foundation appears to be doing this already. I even saw a mail about it today.
5: If at all feasible, offer an easy opt-out. People are actually more likely to give something a decent try if they know they can switch back if they don't like it.
IIRC, both VE and MediaViewer offered opt-out from the beginning; the MV opt-out just was "below the fold" or something.
6: Show willingness to budge. "No, we won't do ACTRIAL, period." "You get VE, like it or not." "You're getting Mediaviewer even if we have to develop a new protection level to cram it down your throats!" That type of hamfisted, I'm-right-you're-wrong approach will gear people right up for a fight. Fights are bad. Discussions are good. But people don't like to talk to a brick wall.
Everyone (as in, the vast majority of people I ever spoke to, approaching 100%) agreed that Wikipedia editing, especially for newbies, sucked. Everyone agreed that what happened when clicking on a file in Wikipedia was confusing for most readers. These are not issues the Foundation just made up in some ivory tower; there was little dispute that something should be done. So the Foundation did, and switched their solution on, for everyone, because most users are "just" readers, not editors, and see an actual improvement. Neiter VE nor MV was perfect in the beginning; neither is now. They just got better over time. So MV is active for everyone, including IPs, even on German Wikipedia, right now. Because it's beeter for most people, and it works. Why did it need to be completely switch off again?
Many of us were asking for a WYSIWYG editor for some time, because we very much need a way to reach out to prospective editors who are intimidated by wikimarkup or just don't care to learn it. So it wasn't that we were opposed to VE in principle. Good idea, bad execution.
As someone who has worked on alternative Wikitext parsers, and alternative interfaces, rest assured that the execution was quite good for an initial version. As I said before, it is impossible to get this perfect right away. Just like it is impossible (literally, as in "not possible") to reliably get the license for an image in MV on all cases. The community/vocal group needs to show some patience when developers are trying their best to get a giant project up and running smoothy.
Cheers, Magnus
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple of people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not newbies. Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit. It was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most of the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there is still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about an innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical solutions are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual editor and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time. We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote:
As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
working smoothly first.
But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
Thanks, Mike _______________________________________________ Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l,
mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
Wikimedia-l mailing list, guidelines at: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Mailing_lists/Guidelines New messages to: Wikimedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l, mailto:wikimedia-l-request@lists.wikimedia.org?subject=unsubscribe
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Ah, I see. I am the problem. Glad we cleared that up.
On Fri, Jan 22, 2016 at 6:56 AM Isarra Yos zhorishna@gmail.com wrote:
You just don't get it, do you? Even from the start this was all about social issues with rollouts, and still you are contributing to the very same social problems you so blindly condemned.
-I
On 20/01/16 14:16, Magnus Manske wrote:
On Wed, Jan 20, 2016 at 12:58 AM Todd Allen toddmallen@gmail.com
wrote:
Once the VisualEditor was fit for purpose and a good deployment strategy had been developed, the English Wikipedia community overwhelmingly supported rolling it out. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_(proposals)/Archive_125...
)
That is for new accounts only. Without an account, still no VE for you, even if you are probably the one needing it most.
It's not Luddism, it's not "resistance to change", it's not "power
users"
grumpy about newbies having an easier time, it's not anything like that. It's that in the state it was initially released in, the thing did not work.
No one said "Luddism", except to defend against its use. Odd.
So yes, by all means, let's try new things. But try:
1: Asking us what we actually want, before coding something up and
feeling
obligated to push it out. People are a lot more receptive to something
they
asked for than something being forced upon them. That's been an issue
with
Flow. It's not that it doesn't work well (though it doesn't), it's that
it
wasn't wanted to start with. So instead of "Here's the new discussion system", ask "What can we do to make our system of discussion better?"
Listening to what editors want is important. ONLY listening to wad
editors
want is bad. People often don't know what they want or need, until they
see
it. Compare the famous (possibly misattributed) Henry Ford quote: “If I had asked people what they wanted, they would have said faster horses.”
Also, veteran editors do not represent the readers or casual/newbie editors; their needs are often quite different.
2: Make sure it works. Have an opt-in beta phase. Doesn't have to be perfect, but certainly make sure it's not breaking page formatting all
over
the place. You'll notice, for example, that there wasn't really any resistance to HHVM. It worked well, it was desirable, it was clearly fit for purpose. So no, there isn't just a reflexive change aversion. Though the previous missteps and hamfisted followups have, rather ironically, created a lot of the reflexive change aversion that people said was
there.
Wrong example. The HHMV switch was a back-end change that should have had no visible effect. As long as the servers are fast, people don't really care what's going on there. Did e.g. English Wikipedia actually vote on HHMV?
3: Be nice (but NOT condescending or patronizing) if an issue comes up. "Superprotect" alienated people right quickly, and turned what could
have
been a productive (if tense) conversation into a war. Same with refusal
to
budge on VE and the arrogant tone several people took. Yes, some people might be rude about objecting to the change. Don't sink to their level.
If
they call the new software a steaming pile, ask "Could you offer more concrete feedback?"
Superprotect was used to revert an admin action on de.wikipedia, an
action
that might actually fall under U.S. or German computer sabotage laws.
This
was hailed as some heroic action by that vocal group I keep mentioning, when it can easily be seen as someone abusing the privileges given by the Foundation (as owners of the servers) to deactivate functionality put in place by the Foundation. The creation and subsequent use of superprotect was not exactly the most wise decision ever undertaken, but neither was the original sabotage (literally so; using access to a machine to stop it from working, just
not
using a wooden shoe). And while it is always good to ask for more concrete feedback, it is even better to offer it to begin with.
4: Don't surprise people. Not everyone follows the Village Pumps or what have you. If a major new feature is set to roll out, do banners, do watchlist notices, do whatever it takes, but make sure people know. When Mediaviewer was rolled out, all of a sudden, I was just having images
act
completely different. I had no idea what was going on. People are more amenable to change if you brace them for it. Even better, do that to develop a rollout strategy in advance with the community. (You already
know
they want it; they asked for it. Right?)
The Foundation appears to be doing this already. I even saw a mail about
it
today.
5: If at all feasible, offer an easy opt-out. People are actually more likely to give something a decent try if they know they can switch back
if
they don't like it.
IIRC, both VE and MediaViewer offered opt-out from the beginning; the MV opt-out just was "below the fold" or something.
6: Show willingness to budge. "No, we won't do ACTRIAL, period." "You
get
VE, like it or not." "You're getting Mediaviewer even if we have to
develop
a new protection level to cram it down your throats!" That type of hamfisted, I'm-right-you're-wrong approach will gear people right up
for a
fight. Fights are bad. Discussions are good. But people don't like to
talk
to a brick wall.
Everyone (as in, the vast majority of people I ever spoke to, approaching 100%) agreed that Wikipedia editing, especially for newbies, sucked. Everyone agreed that what happened when clicking on a file in Wikipedia
was
confusing for most readers. These are not issues the Foundation just made up in some ivory tower;
there
was little dispute that something should be done. So the Foundation did, and switched their solution on, for everyone, because most users are
"just"
readers, not editors, and see an actual improvement. Neiter VE nor MV was perfect in the beginning; neither is now. They just got better over time. So MV is active for everyone, including IPs, even on German Wikipedia, right now. Because it's beeter for most people, and it works. Why did it need to be completely switch off again?
Many of us were asking for a WYSIWYG editor for some time, because we
very
much need a way to reach out to prospective editors who are intimidated
by
wikimarkup or just don't care to learn it. So it wasn't that we were opposed to VE in principle. Good idea, bad execution.
As someone who has worked on alternative Wikitext parsers, and
alternative
interfaces, rest assured that the execution was quite good for an initial version. As I said before, it is impossible to get this perfect right
away.
Just like it is impossible (literally, as in "not possible") to reliably get the license for an image in MV on all cases. The community/vocal
group
needs to show some patience when developers are trying their best to get
a
giant project up and running smoothy.
Cheers, Magnus
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:39 AM, Anthony Cole ahcoleecu@gmail.com
wrote:
Magnus, you've missed the point of the visual editor revolt. A couple
of
people here have tried to explain that to you, politely. And you're persisting with your idée fixe.
There were two parts to the visual editor catastrophe, actually. The product wasn't ready for anyone to use. Not veteran editors. Not
newbies.
Newbies who used it were less likely to successfully complete an edit.
It
was broken, and the WMF insisted we had to use it.
The second part of the problem was arrogance. Yes, a few editors were unnecessarily rude about the product and the developers. But then most
of
the developers and tech staff who dealt with the community arrogantly characterised *anyone* who complained about the product as an ignorant, selfish Ludite - and you're persisting with that characterisation now.
The WMF under Lila has learned the lessons from that, and they have fostered a much healthier relationship between the developers and the community. You clearly haven't learned all you might have.
In fact, reading the arrogant responses from you here and in the
concurrent
thread titled "How to disseminate free knowledge," and from Denny in earlier threads addressing criticism of WikiData, it seems to me there
is
still a significant arrogance problem that needs addressing, at least
over
at WikiData.
Some people may approach you arrogantly, maybe even insultingly, about
an
innovation, and I suppose you might be justified in talking down to
them
or
ridiculing them (though I advise against it.). But if you can't
distinguish
them from those who approach you with genuine concerns and well-founded criticisms, then no matter how clever you think your technical
solutions
are, you will soon find you're no more welcome here than those WMF
staffers
who thought insulting well-meaning critics was a good career move.
Denny's contemptuous dismissal of valid criticisms of his project, and
your
contemptuous dismissal of the valid criticisms of the early visual
editor
and its launch are both very disappointing.
Anthony Cole
On Tue, Jan 19, 2016 at 7:24 AM, Magnus Manske < magnusmanske@googlemail.com> wrote:
The iPhone was a commercial success because it let you do the basic functions easily and intuitively, and looked shiny at the same time.
We
do
not charge a price; our "win" comes by people using our product. If we
can
present the product in such a way that more people use it, it is a
success
for us.
I do stand by my example :-)
On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 10:37 PM Michael Peel email@mikepeel.net
wrote:
> On 18 Jan 2016, at 22:35, Magnus Manske <
magnusmanske@googlemail.com
wrote: > As one can be overly conservative, one can also be overly
enthusiastic. I
> would hope the Foundation by now understands better how to handle
new
> software releases. Apple here shows the way: Basic functionality,
but
> working smoothly first. But at a huge cost premium? I'm not sure that's a good example to
make
here. :-/
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On Mon, Jan 18, 2016 at 1:45 PM, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
As a huge VE advocate, I was quite disconcerted how hard the WMF was trying to force through what was clearly an early beta in need of real-world testing as if it were a production-ready product; I think this was the problem and the reason for the backlash. VE *now* has had a couple of years' development in a real-world environment and is really quite excellent (and the only sensible way to edit tables). But the problem here was not fear of change or fear of technology, but rejecting technology that was being forced on editors when it was really obviously not up to the job as yet.
- d.
This. David and Risker say it well. From my position, as the guy responsible for the team that was worried about the non-technical aspects of the rollout, I think I'm safe
in saying that the root cause was a lack of a clearly articulated minimum viable product. From the WMF developers' POV, "Hey! it does half of what you need!" was a pretty substantial win at the time. From the POV of a random editor, "Hey! it only does //half// of what I need" was pretty damning criticism.
I own part of the blame for that rollout. I wish I'd pushed back harder. In my own defense, the team that had to articulate these changes and manage the social roll out (which formed the corpus of the Community Engagement (Product) team today) was hired about 11 minutes before the roll-out. We didn't have much of a chance to have direct influence. And I don't think we really knew how many editing errors would be introduced - I don't think that anyone expected that, and until we got it up to scale, we wouldn't have seen that, necessarily.
The real flaw was the failure to agree with the editing community on what the minimum viable product was. I'm pleased to say that the WMF learned a lot from that experience, and by the time I left, we had moved on to making a whole new set of mistakes....
But yeah, what David and Risker said.
pb
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On 18 January 2016 at 13:34, Andrew Lih andrew.lih@gmail.com wrote:
There’s an excellent profile of Magnus Manske in the Wikimedia blog today. It’s hard to think of people more important to the movement than Magnus has been since 2001.
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/01/18/fifteen-years-wikipedia-magnus-manske/
Since some people are reporting problems accessing the page. here it is (but you miss out on the lovely photo of a younger Magnus!):
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The world and the Internet have been permanently altered in the last fifteen years: Altavista and Lycos, for instance, were the popular search engines of the day, and “Googling” something had three more years to come about. The concept of social media was nearly non-existent.
It should come as no surprise, then, that when Magnus Manske started editing Wikipedia in 2001, the encyclopedia was a very different place. Its home page in November 2001, now utterly dated, boasts of having 16,000 English-language articles—and the contributors could only dream of getting to 100,000. There were no images on the front page, only black text and blue hyperlinks.
Manske told the blog that he vividly remembers this original front page: “Back in 2001, Wikipedia was the new kid on the block. We were the underdogs, starting from a blank slate, taking on entities like Brockhaus and Britannica, seemingly eternal giants in the encyclopedia world. I remember the Main Page saying ‘We currently have 15 not-so-bad articles. We want to make 100,000, so let’s get to work.’ ‘Not-so-bad’ referred to stubs with at least one comma.”
“It was a ghost town, with just about no content whatsoever.”
Still, humor was not lost on the pioneering editors who were working towards a seemingly impossible and unattainable goal. When the subject of replacing the Wikipedia logo came up—at this time, there was no world-famous Wikipedia ‘globe’ logo; in its place was a quote from Thomas Hobbes’ Leviathan—one contributor referenced the infinite monkey theorem: “A million monkeys. A million typewriters. Wikipedia.”
At that point in time, even MediaWiki—the software that underpins Wikipedia and other wiki sites around the word—didn’t exist. However, the site’s growth posed problems for the original UseModWiki code, as it could not scale up to meet the demand. Manske coded a replacement for UseMod, which he called Phase II. It introduced a number of innovations that Wikipedia editors still use today, such as namespaces, watchlists, and user contribution lists.
However, even Manske’s code had to be rewritten a year later, as Wikipedia was growing explosively. That original goal 100,000 articles would have put Wikipedia in the same category of Brittanica; Manske said that based on Wikipedia’s initial growth, they thought they would hit 100,000 in ten years—and “even that seemed overly optimistic.”
In reality, it took only two. “Once we hit exponential growth, it all became a blur; suddenly, the rocket was off the ground. We tried our best to hold on and stay on course. Two months ago we passed five million articles, fifty times the number we hoped for.”
In the succeeding fifteen years, Manske has seen several life changes—in 2001, he was just another a biology student at the University of Cologne. His work on Wikipedia since then has heavily influenced his life. His current job in population genetics actually sprung out of it: “During my PhD, I got an email from a professor in Oxford who wanted to run a wiki in his lab, and he somehow heard that I am the man to talk to. He invited me over to the UK to give a brief talk and answer some questions, which I did. He then realized I was in biology and would be looking for a post-doc soon, and he was starting a group in Cambridge.”
Wikipedia has too. The blog asked Manske for his thoughts on where Wikipedia is today:
“ While it is fine to grow a little conservative in order to protect our common achievement that is Wikipedia, I think we should be more open and enthusiastic for new possibilities. A prime example is the site itself. People love the site not just for its content, but also for its calm, ad-free appearance, an island of tranquility in the otherwise often shrill web; the calm and quiet of a old-fashioned library, a refuge from the loud and hectic online world.
But we have gone from slowdown to standstill; the interface has changed little in the last ten years or so, and all the recent changes have been fought teeth-and-claw by the communities, especially the larger language editions. From the Media Viewer, the Visual Editor, to Wikidata transclusion, all have been resisted by vocal groups of editors, not because they are a problem, but because they represent change. For these editors, the site has worked fine for years; why change anything?
To some degree, all websites, including Wikipedia, must obey the Red Queen hypothesis: you have to run just to stand still. This does not only affect Wikipedia itself, but the entire Wikimedia ecosystem. Our media handling is antiquated to say the least; video inclusion in article is only now starting to pick up, many years after sites like YouTube have become as ubiquitous as Wikipedia itself. Other great projects, like Wikisource and Wikiquote, remain in their own little niche, hampered to a large degree by the lack of appropriate technology. Wikidata, the only radical new technology in the recent WikiVerse, was spawned by [Wikimedia Deutschland/Germany], not WMF proper, and remains poorly understood by many Wikipedians.
A lot has changed since 2001. Wikipedia is a success. We are no longer fighting with our back at the abyss of failed start-ups; we have a solid foundation to work from. But if we wall our garden against change, against new users, new technologies, new approaches, our work of 15 years is in danger of fading away. An established brand name only carries so far. Ask IBM. Ask AOL. Right now, we are in an ideal position to try new things. We have nothing to lose, except a little time.
Ed Erhart, Editorial Associate Wikimedia Foundation
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It has a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 unported license There's a comment thread, there, too.
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