Is this restricted to en: or across all Wikipedias or something else? Is there a project discussion page somewhere? Cheers, Peter

-----Original Message----- From: Wikimedia-l [mailto:wikimedia-l-bounces@lists.wikimedia.org] On Behalf Of Olatunde Isaac Sent: Friday, 25 March 2016 10:44 AM To: Wikimedia Mailing List Cc: Atsme Subject: [Wikimedia-l] WikiProject Accuracy

Dear all,

We seek community input on a proposed WikiProject called "WikiProject Accuracy" conceptualized by Ms. Betty Wills (User:Atsme). Following a recent discussion with Betty, I decided to bring it here for community input because of the possible controversy that may arise from establishing a WikiProject like this.

The primary goals of WikiProject Accuracy are to:

*Increase quality of Wikipedia articles *Increase reliability of Wikipedia articles *Promote/improve collaboration among experienced editors *Promote existing editors retention

Betty's ideas are to form a team of Project Accuracy Coordinators to oversee the project, help establish criteria and minimum qualifications for fact-check teams, help with the project's page design and tasks and to form additional teams comprising appointed representatives from other project teams to help coordinate and organize a list of articles for review, and who will serve as members of Project Accuracy's Editorial Review Board (PAERB). The PAERB will be responsible for review and approval of articles nominated to bear the "reviewed and approved for accuracy" seal in the top right corner of the article. The ideas also aim to support the WMF's "Reach" campaign and help establish or re-establish credibility in Wikipedia articles that carry the RAAFA seal as a trusted source worthy of citing at all levels of academia, government, research, etc.

This seem like a unique approach to improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia and increasing reliability of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. The idea to bring experienced editors together to serve in the editorial board of the project sounds like a great way to benefit from the specialized skills of all participants.

However, an editor (User:Smallbones) raised a concern on whether this is in line with the spirit of Wikipedia which permit anyone to freely edit its content at all levels. User:Smallbones said " An Editorial Review Board sounds like a very interesting idea and could be fun. But actually I think it could easily violate Wikipedia rules, such as forming some sort of exclusive club that others couldn't join without an invitation. If it's just another rating scheme (that anybody can participate in whenever they want)"

I respect Smallbones concerns but I don't see a major problem with the idea of establishing an Editorial Review Board (ERB) comprising of trusted and experienced editors as board members. From the look of things, WikiProject Accuracy is likely to generate controversy among Wikipedians. The controversy will centered on whether this idea is against the vision of Wikipedia or not. Thus, we seek broader community input on this proposed project.

Best,

Olatunde Isaac.

Manager, Wikipedia Education Program Nigeria. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile. _______________________________________________ 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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Just judging from this email, I tend to agree with Smallbones and based on the name alone I would vote against this project. That said, I believe I understand the motivation behind this and I would vote for a project called "WikiProject Content Synchronization" which would be the (re)birth of CoSyne, a more-or-less forgotten project once supported by WMNL, see here (Dutch only, sorry): https://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/CoSyne

The problem with accuracy is that there is no single truth and no single form of accuracy. Wikpedia has proven time and again that the only thing that seems to improve accuracy over time is "more eyes". What we can do is make it easier for casual readers to see serious discrepancies in data across projects. The CoSyne project happened before Wikidata, but today we can harness the power of Wikidata to make important improvements and enable constructive edits easily. For example, work is being done to link all images of a painting on Commons to it's Wikidata item, which enables people who care to see more (and possibly higher quality) images of paintings they are interested in. Making more people aware of how their statements hold up to similar statements on other projects could be a great way forward to attract more constructive (micro-)contributions and to improve accuracy.

On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 9:44 AM, Olatunde Isaac reachout2isaac@gmail.com wrote:

Dear all,

We seek community input on a proposed WikiProject called "WikiProject Accuracy" conceptualized by Ms. Betty Wills (User:Atsme). Following a recent discussion with Betty, I decided to bring it here for community input because of the possible controversy that may arise from establishing a WikiProject like this.

The primary goals of WikiProject Accuracy are to:

*Increase quality of Wikipedia articles *Increase reliability of Wikipedia articles *Promote/improve collaboration among experienced editors *Promote existing editors retention

Betty's ideas are to form a team of Project Accuracy Coordinators to oversee the project, help establish criteria and minimum qualifications for fact-check teams, help with the project's page design and tasks and to form additional teams comprising appointed representatives from other project teams to help coordinate and organize a list of articles for review, and who will serve as members of Project Accuracy's Editorial Review Board (PAERB). The PAERB will be responsible for review and approval of articles nominated to bear the "reviewed and approved for accuracy" seal in the top right corner of the article. The ideas also aim to support the WMF's "Reach" campaign and help establish or re-establish credibility in Wikipedia articles that carry the RAAFA seal as a trusted source worthy of citing at all levels of academia, government, research, etc.

This seem like a unique approach to improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia and increasing reliability of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. The idea to bring experienced editors together to serve in the editorial board of the project sounds like a great way to benefit from the specialized skills of all participants.

However, an editor (User:Smallbones) raised a concern on whether this is in line with the spirit of Wikipedia which permit anyone to freely edit its content at all levels. User:Smallbones said " An Editorial Review Board sounds like a very interesting idea and could be fun. But actually I think it could easily violate Wikipedia rules, such as forming some sort of exclusive club that others couldn't join without an invitation. If it's just another rating scheme (that anybody can participate in whenever they want)"

I respect Smallbones concerns but I don't see a major problem with the idea of establishing an Editorial Review Board (ERB) comprising of trusted and experienced editors as board members. From the look of things, WikiProject Accuracy is likely to generate controversy among Wikipedians. The controversy will centered on whether this idea is against the vision of Wikipedia or not. Thus, we seek broader community input on this proposed project.

Best,

Olatunde Isaac.

Manager, Wikipedia Education Program Nigeria. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile. _______________________________________________ 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, There are two parts to it as far as I am concerned. More collaboration, I am all for it.

The other part is a power grab because it means that things must meet "established" requirements, that is imho a bad idea. It establishes power struggles whereby established "truths" trump common sense without a reasonable argument. The argument given is that it must comply with (insert your alphabet soup here) and that does not convince me at all. I have my recipe for soup and the only thing done is impose a recipe.

Wikipedia is not Nupedia and the difference is exactly a board that for all the "right" reasons failed to get cooperation. It is why your proposal fails what Wikipedia is about. Thanks, GerardM

On 25 March 2016 at 09:44, Olatunde Isaac reachout2isaac@gmail.com wrote:

Dear all,

We seek community input on a proposed WikiProject called "WikiProject Accuracy" conceptualized by Ms. Betty Wills (User:Atsme). Following a recent discussion with Betty, I decided to bring it here for community input because of the possible controversy that may arise from establishing a WikiProject like this.

The primary goals of WikiProject Accuracy are to:

*Increase quality of Wikipedia articles *Increase reliability of Wikipedia articles *Promote/improve collaboration among experienced editors *Promote existing editors retention

Betty's ideas are to form a team of Project Accuracy Coordinators to oversee the project, help establish criteria and minimum qualifications for fact-check teams, help with the project's page design and tasks and to form additional teams comprising appointed representatives from other project teams to help coordinate and organize a list of articles for review, and who will serve as members of Project Accuracy's Editorial Review Board (PAERB). The PAERB will be responsible for review and approval of articles nominated to bear the "reviewed and approved for accuracy" seal in the top right corner of the article. The ideas also aim to support the WMF's "Reach" campaign and help establish or re-establish credibility in Wikipedia articles that carry the RAAFA seal as a trusted source worthy of citing at all levels of academia, government, research, etc.

This seem like a unique approach to improving the quality of articles on Wikipedia and increasing reliability of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. The idea to bring experienced editors together to serve in the editorial board of the project sounds like a great way to benefit from the specialized skills of all participants.

However, an editor (User:Smallbones) raised a concern on whether this is in line with the spirit of Wikipedia which permit anyone to freely edit its content at all levels. User:Smallbones said " An Editorial Review Board sounds like a very interesting idea and could be fun. But actually I think it could easily violate Wikipedia rules, such as forming some sort of exclusive club that others couldn't join without an invitation. If it's just another rating scheme (that anybody can participate in whenever they want)"

I respect Smallbones concerns but I don't see a major problem with the idea of establishing an Editorial Review Board (ERB) comprising of trusted and experienced editors as board members. From the look of things, WikiProject Accuracy is likely to generate controversy among Wikipedians. The controversy will centered on whether this idea is against the vision of Wikipedia or not. Thus, we seek broader community input on this proposed project.

Best,

Olatunde Isaac.

Manager, Wikipedia Education Program Nigeria. Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile. _______________________________________________ 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 25 March 2016 at 08:44, Olatunde Isaac reachout2isaac@gmail.com wrote:

However, an editor (User:Smallbones) raised a concern on whether this is in line with the spirit of Wikipedia which permit anyone to freely edit its content at all levels. User:Smallbones said " An Editorial Review Board sounds like a very interesting idea and could be fun. But actually I think it could easily violate Wikipedia rules, such as forming some sort of exclusive club that others couldn't join without an invitation. If it's just another rating scheme (that anybody can participate in whenever they want)"

We already have several such "exclusive clubs". Just take a look at the way some WikiProjects operate, or how some editors refer to themselves as "content creators", and others not. Or how the "Featured article candidates" process is run. Or how Arbcom members keep inventing new "rules". Or the objections to admin nominations based on nominees not having created FAs.