At WMUK we are often approached by people wanting to improve content in an
area. We can offer edit training and support for events where people can
come together and improve or create pages. Last week our editathon run by
volunteer Doug Taylor with Barclays was one such success: *'There were
472 “saves” and 378 articles edited or created across 18 different language
Wikipedias'.*
Have a look at the blog
<https://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2014/06/a-global-editathon-teaching-wikipedia-to-barclays/>
Jon Davies,
On 17 June 2014 07:14, edward <edward(a)logicmuseum.com> wrote:
On 17/06/2014 00:28, Kevin Gorman wrote:
>Hi Ed - I'm not sure what your area of
specialty is offhand,
This
http://cuapress.cua.edu/res/docs/Fall-2014-Catalog.pdf#page=17 will
be published in September this year, about the early philosophy of the
medieval theologian Duns Scotus. My focus is on philosophy and logic,
primarily of the middle ages (a period covering more than a thousand years)
but also modern analytic philosophy and philosophy of language. Philosophy
generally is an area that is very poorly covered on Wikipedia.
There is the excellent Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html but that is not written for the
general reader and even specialists in one area might have problems with
articles in another area
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/modeltheory-fo
.
There is a similar problem with Wikipedia mathematics and mathematical
logic articles, by the way. Unlike articles in my area, they seem to be
correct, but they are not written in a style that is accessible to the
general reader.
>On 17/06/2014 00:23, Steven Walling wrote:
The Wikimedia Foundation does not write nor edit content on Wikipedia, nor
does it dictate editorial policy.
I am aware of that, but (a) does that have to be the case anyway? If the
model clearly isn’t working, why not consider another model?
And (b) isn’t the role of the WMF rather like that of the owner of a large
plot of land to be used as a garden. The owner doesn’t do the gardening
directly, but is involved with supplies of fertiliser, weedkiller, pest
control and so on.
Or (c) perhaps the answer might be to help buy the land for other gardens,
unconnected with the original one? I have recently been talking to the
owners of other specialist sites, whose coverage is better than
Wikipedia’s. Perhaps the Foundation could help them with software
development, or even persuade them to use Mediawiki (which IMO is excellent
for this purpose, but needs selling).
>"Pretty much any article in my specialist
area (which is actually not
all that specialist) has serious problems" is to
invite you to edit it.
See geni’s remark below. I can’t edit, and even if I could, it would not
address the general problem of getting specialists involved. I am still in
touch with some of the specialists in my area who used to edit Wikipedia.
Recently I had lunch in London with Julie Hofmann (was, user:JHK, who was
recruited by Larry Sanger and who left in 2002. They all say the same
thing: Wikipedia is not a welcoming place for experts. Pretty much
everyone who was working in my subject has left a long time ago.
On 17/06/2014 00:32, geni wrote:
>User:Peter Damian is currently subject to a
community ban on the English
wikipedia.
‘Community ban’ is a misleading term, implying the whole community, which
it doesn’t. My ban was unconnected with the quality of the content I
contributed. And see my reply to Steven Walling above. One person is not
going to make a whole lot of difference. The problem is with the garden and
the soil, not a single plant.
I don’t see why the WMF couldn’t provide help and advice here. If there
really is an appetite for change – and it really is needed – then now is a
good time to discuss it.
Edward
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*Jon Davies - Chief Executive Wikimedia UK*. Mobile (0044) 7803 505 169
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