Tom Sutcliffe, Start the Week, Radio 4. December 14th
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p87qw
More reporting about Wikipedia?
"Andrew Dalby gives his views on Wikipedia...."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Wikipedia-How-Editing-Reality/dp/0956205208/
Also some stuff about Jimbo from Evgeny Morozov....
Gordo
Gordon Joly wrote:
Tom Sutcliffe, Start the Week, Radio 4. December 14th
http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/console/b00p87qw
More reporting about Wikipedia?
"Andrew Dalby gives his views on Wikipedia...."
http://www.amazon.co.uk/World-Wikipedia-How-Editing-Reality/dp/0956205208/
Also some stuff about Jimbo from Evgeny Morozov....
Gordo
Follow this man?
http://twitter.com/evgenymorozov
Gordo
Gordon Joly wrote:
Follow this man?
No thanks. I take him to be a careerist generating "amusing" paradoxes about the Internet to gain attention. His point on Start the Week about WP was roughly that WP can disregard the statute of limitations; which is a general feature of the Web or any network that crosses jurisdictions.
Charles
2009/12/15 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Gordon Joly wrote:
Follow this man? http://twitter.com/evgenymorozov
No thanks. I take him to be a careerist generating "amusing" paradoxes about the Internet to gain attention.
Nicholas Carr only less subtle?
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
2009/12/15 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
Gordon Joly wrote:
Follow this man? http://twitter.com/evgenymorozov
No thanks. I take him to be a careerist generating "amusing" paradoxes about the Internet to gain attention.
Nicholas Carr only less subtle?
As grating as Andrew Keen but with added tendentious logic? Andrew Lih for people who still really don't get it? By the way, I know nothing about the Andrew Dalby book mentioned on the programme, but he talked quite reasonably (Wales isn't a philosopher while Sanger is, but you could argue that one), with the negative restricted to saying enWP is not going to get much better.
Charles
2009/12/15 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
As grating as Andrew Keen but with added tendentious logic? Andrew Lih for people who still really don't get it? By the way, I know nothing about the Andrew Dalby book mentioned on the programme, but he talked quite reasonably (Wales isn't a philosopher while Sanger is, but you could argue that one), with the negative restricted to saying enWP is not going to get much better.
Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) is one of us, so at least knows what he's talking about!
It's not clear what "much better" means for en:wp. "Better" is attainable, but what would being notably better than we are look like?
(I think the last big changes were (a) useful as a general encyclopedia, which we weren't five years ago except in limited areas; (ii) a culture of references, which was a b*gg*r to get started. By the way, I created the {{unref}} template.)
- d.
2009/12/15 David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) is one of us, so at least knows what he's talking about!
It's not clear what "much better" means for en:wp. "Better" is attainable, but what would being notably better than we are look like?
(I think the last big changes were (a) useful as a general encyclopedia, which we weren't five years ago except in limited areas; (ii) a culture of references, which was a b*gg*r to get started. By the way, I created the {{unref}} template.)
Wikipedia is probably not able to drive change (not least because we've probably hit the limits of the software) but it is able to be involved with it.
For example the popularity of wikipedia applications related to augmented reality shows that it able to be involved with change. On the other hand we have no way to drive use of 2D barcodes pointing at wikipedia articles and thus we can't really be involved with augmented reality below the level that GPS reaches.
2009/12/15 geni geniice@gmail.com:
Wikipedia is probably not able to drive change (not least because we've probably hit the limits of the software) but it is able to be involved with it.
Yes, the software is suffering a paucity of developers and certain structural problems due to early decisions that turned out bad (e.g. wikitext is near-impossible to formalise, making WYSIWYG difficult). But mostly it's a paucity of developers.
For example the popularity of wikipedia applications related to augmented reality shows that it able to be involved with change. On the other hand we have no way to drive use of 2D barcodes pointing at wikipedia articles and thus we can't really be involved with augmented reality below the level that GPS reaches.
The thing there then is to get the API into shape. At present it's highly usable for bots, etc - in fact, bots are suggested-to-required to use the API rather than screenscraping. Next step is to evangelise the API to relevant groups of geeks. To keep it UK, I suggest the perlmongers spring to mind :-)
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
It's not clear what "much better" means for en:wp. "Better" is attainable, but what would being notably better than we are look like?
(I think the last big changes were (a) useful as a general encyclopedia, which we weren't five years ago except in limited areas; (ii) a culture of references, which was a b*gg*r to get started. By the way, I created the {{unref}} template.)
It's all arguable, which is why what Andrew Dalby was saying wasn't a stupid opinion (unlike some I could mention). We could turn all the redlinks blue on 1000 lists, or add 10000 new images to articles, or upgrade 50000 two-line stubs to four paras, and (arguably) the people looking up [[Cheryl Cole]] would see no real difference.
I think he's wrong, because the switching on of flagged doodads should mean that the vandal edit mentioned on the programme (an IP number had changed the death date at [[Christopher R. W. Nevinson]] early in November) would have been caught. He's also wrong because there's just one team updating the site, not one team for popular culture and another one for "unpopular culture"; useful in your general sense is created by synergy and that we do have.
Charles
David Gerard wrote:
2009/12/15 Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com:
As grating as Andrew Keen but with added tendentious logic? Andrew Lih for people who still really don't get it? By the way, I know nothing about the Andrew Dalby book mentioned on the programme, but he talked quite reasonably (Wales isn't a philosopher while Sanger is, but you could argue that one), with the negative restricted to saying enWP is not going to get much better.
Andrew Lih (Fuzheado) is one of us, so at least knows what he's talking about!
It's not clear what "much better" means for en:wp. "Better" is attainable, but what would being notably better than we are look like?
(I think the last big changes were (a) useful as a general encyclopedia, which we weren't five years ago except in limited areas; (ii) a culture of references, which was a b*gg*r to get started. By the way, I created the {{unref}} template.)
- d.
And a beautiful template it is David.
I feel the programme was {{unref}}'ed....
For example, it seemed to suggest that Jimbo was responsible as Editor in Chief.
Gordon
Gordon Joly wrote:
I feel the programme was {{unref}}'ed....
For example, it seemed to suggest that Jimbo was responsible as Editor in Chief.
Dah, considering the number of obvious mistakes even in good coverage of WP, that is more of a misinterpretation. [[Editor in chief]] seems to believe there is a definition, but I had the impression it was a title that could mean anything or nothing (quite apt for Jimbo, therefore). More to the point really was that this was a classic Middle England presentation taking for granted that WP issues weren't just a reason for people to turn off the radio, then ring up and complain. We've come a long way ...
Charles
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