I think finding a better way to report the human contribution to Wikipedia
is a good idea, and counting only those articles that have been edited at
least once sounds like a reasonable solution. However, if possible could
the raw number of articles that is currently shown on the Main Page be
there too? Also, if we made some change to the markup, and some automated
conversion needed to be done wouldn't this sort of muck up the article
count? Anyway, as long as you keep the plain article total as well I'm
happy. I'm on the daily digest, so haven't read any other replies, but one
solution to the automated conversion thing could be to not count minor
edits, so automated conversions could be labeled minor edits.
ASB
--
<signature>
There are only 10 types of people in this world;
Those that know binary...and those that don't
</signature>
Erik Moeller wrote:
>> It has been suggested on wikitech-l that the article count on the main
page should only contain articles that have been edited at least once
after their creation. The implicit assumption is that the primary use of
the count is as a measure of our collaborative, human success. By
eliminating unedited articles, we would
- exclude most articles created by bots
- exclude articles that have not had any kind of quality review by others.
This would not be too hard to implement. It's not a big issue like
certification (more on that later), but it would still be nice to get some
feedback before proceeding.
The quick and even easier alternative is to manually subtract articles
from the count that have been generated by the bots we are aware of. <<
-----
I couldn't agree more, and I think this is actually rather pressing, given
that the number appears to be approaching our goal. It *appears*, albeit
misleadingly, that we have nearly 100,000 articles on the website. I know
that's not what it says, but the number just jumps out at the casual
reader. When that number ticks over 100,000 then I suspect people are
going to start passing judgment on Wikipedia's level of quality: "They say
they've reached their goal of 100,000 articles, but just look at the
articles! Another waste of bandwidth!"
Of course not everyone will say that, and *I* wouldn't say that, but
plenty of people might, e.g., on Slashdot or K5 or other influential
forums. Let's not give them the opportunity.
Let's use Erik's modifications to cut the number of reported articles
down. This will give the Wikipedia peer review project, and possibly
other article selection projects, some time to start working. Then, if
someone feels inclined to say, "You might have 100,000 articles but most
of them aren't worth reading," we can reply, "There are review projects
--join them and stop complaining."
Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell
It has been suggested on wikitech-l that the article count on the main page
should only contain articles that have been edited at least once after their
creation. The implicit assumption is that the primary use of the count is as
a measure of our collaborative, human success. By eliminating unedited
articles, we would
- exclude most articles created by bots
- exclude articles that have not had any kind of quality review by others.
This would not be too hard to implement. It's not a big issue like
certification (more on that later), but it would still be nice to get some feedback
before proceeding.
The quick and even easier alternative is to manually subtract articles from
the count that have been generated by the bots we are aware of.
Regards,
Erik
--
+++ GMX - Mail, Messaging & more http://www.gmx.net +++
NEU: Mit GMX ins Internet. Rund um die Uhr für 1 ct/ Min. surfen!
At 08:41 05/11/02 -0500, Poor, Edmund W wrote:
>Has anyone thought of selective banning?
>
>Refuse anonymous edits from the banned IP, but allow signed-in edits.
>
>We could supply a message like, "Sorry but due to abuse from IP i.j.k.l,
>you must sign in to contribute."
I think that's what Erik Moeller had in mind with point #2 of his message
at 11:47:25 +0100 yesterday, and I think it's a good idea. If vandals want
to be persistent we should at least make them go to the trouble of
getting a fake hotmail address to sign up with ;-)
Rob
[Probably not the right place for this plea. Please forward to the right person. (See next to last paragraph below for my reason for using this forum.]
I am a new user of Wikipedia. It seems like a great project. Since about 1963, I have believed that the world needs a really big encyclopedia to access all knowledge about everything (before the internet, I estimated thousands of printed volumes). In the '80s I learned of the idea now called "hyperlink" and I knew, theoretically, how this could work as a continually updated virtual book. Nupedia and Wikipedia promise to fulfill this vision.
But the very second time I tried to add a suggestion I was referred to a page with this content:
============================================================
User is blocked
(Posted separately to Nupedia-l and Advisory-l.)
Hello all,
Recently I proposed on Wikipedia-l to help start a "peer review" project
for Wikipedia.
If you are a Nupedia peer reviewer or editor, I hope you will consider
getting involved, because we really *need* your expertise!
The purpose of the project, at least as I've envisioned it, is limited to
picking and posting those Wikipedia articles that are of sufficiently high
quality (see below). The picking and posting will be exceedingly simple,
to be done by subject area experts--people with qualifications similar to
those required for Nupedia peer reviewers. Any necessary editing will be
done on Wikipedia itself, so this new website will be a *subset*, not a
*fork*, of Wikipedia articles.
I've set up a mailing list ("Sifter-l," see below). Now we can get busy
* discussing policy issues (e.g., article requirements)
* picking a name
* discussing software requirements (Magnus and Lee are at work)
If enough qualified reviewers join up and get to work posting really
excellent articles, I think we could, within several months, have several
thousand expert-certified, great articles. This would go a long way to
winning the whole free encyclopedia movement credibility. It would be
good for Wikipedia *and* Nupedia. It might help win us the funding we
need.
MAILING LIST
I have just set up a mailing list, Sifter-l, for purposes of discussing
this.
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/sifter-l
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL
For those on Nupedia-l and Advisory-l, here's the original proposal again:
In view of the facts that Wikipedia has grown tremendously; that we have
lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified participants due to
disgust with having to deal with a few difficult, uncooperative
participants; and above all, that there is a vast body of *hundreds* of
highly educated and willing free encyclopedia participants waiting idle
due to the dormancy of Nupedia; I propose the following:
(1) We--whether Bomis or someone else--should set up another website. It
should definitely not live at the Wikipedia.com domain.
(2) The purpose of the new website will be to *select* and *post*
Wikipedia articles that are up to a certain standard.
(3) The only participants in the new website will be those that meet the
Nupedia requirements in their particular fields, or some other similarly
stringent requirements.
(4) Either I, or a small group of trusted people, will be responsible for
approving participants.
(5) The website will be *read only*. No one will be able to edit it
directly, including its participants. This means it *won't* be a wiki.
(6) Any participant will have to go to Wikipedia to make any edits to an
article.
(7) Participants will save *particular versions* of articles, not the
current article, whatever it happens to be. There should be a link to
"the most current version" of a given article on Wikipedia, as well.
(8) Implementing the website should not require *any* changes to
Wikipedia. I want to leave Wikipedia alone completely. The only thing
that *might* make sense is to add a link (which should be optional!) to a
corresponding "subset" website article, if it exists. In particular,
"subset" participants should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia editors with
any particular, special status on Wikipedia. And "subset" policy,
whatever it might turn out to be, should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia
policy.
(9) Also, I don't think we should host this website on Nupedia.com.
INTERFACE WITH NUPEDIA
Jimbo has made it clear that he wanted to do something like this with
Nupedia, but it also looks like he doesn't intend to do it anytime soon.
I and others think that this would cause an unnecessary firestorm of
controversy, and several of us are anxious to get to work actually doing
something. So the plan is to proceed using some other address--not
Wikipedia.org and not Nupedia.com--and then, later, we'll have a much
better idea of whether it's a wise move to merge the new review project
with Nupedia.
Personal note: I'm still underemployed, though not unemployed, and so I am
thinking of getting behind Lee Crocker's effort to set up a Free
Encyclopedia Foundation. Even if no funding is forthcoming, I want to
help get this new effort off the ground, because I think it's important.
But I won't be able to work on it anywhere near full-time unless a
Foundation can support my work.
Best,
Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell
(Posted separately to Nupedia-l and Advisory-l.)
Hello all,
Recently I proposed on Wikipedia-l to help start a "peer review" project
for Wikipedia.
If you are a Nupedia peer reviewer or editor, I hope you will consider
getting involved, because we really *need* your expertise!
The purpose of the project, at least as I've envisioned it, is limited to
picking and posting those Wikipedia articles that are of sufficiently high
quality (see below). The picking and posting will be exceedingly simple,
to be done by subject area experts--people with qualifications similar to
those required for Nupedia peer reviewers. Any necessary editing will be
done on Wikipedia itself, so this new website will be a *subset*, not a
*fork*, of Wikipedia articles.
I've set up a mailing list ("Sifter-l," see below). Now we can get busy
* discussing policy issues (e.g., article requirements)
* picking a name
* discussing software requirements (Magnus and Lee are at work)
If enough qualified reviewers join up and get to work posting really
excellent articles, I think we could, within several months, have several
thousand expert-certified, great articles. This would go a long way to
winning the whole free encyclopedia movement credibility. It would be
good for Wikipedia *and* Nupedia. It might help win us the funding we
need.
MAILING LIST
I have just set up a mailing list, Sifter-l, for purposes of discussing
this.
http://www.nupedia.com/mailman/listinfo/sifter-l
ORIGINAL PROPOSAL
For those on Nupedia-l and Advisory-l, here's the original proposal again:
In view of the facts that Wikipedia has grown tremendously; that we have
lost several of our most overeducated, overqualified participants due to
disgust with having to deal with a few difficult, uncooperative
participants; and above all, that there is a vast body of *hundreds* of
highly educated and willing free encyclopedia participants waiting idle
due to the dormancy of Nupedia; I propose the following:
(1) We--whether Bomis or someone else--should set up another website. It
should definitely not live at the Wikipedia.com domain.
(2) The purpose of the new website will be to *select* and *post*
Wikipedia articles that are up to a certain standard.
(3) The only participants in the new website will be those that meet the
Nupedia requirements in their particular fields, or some other similarly
stringent requirements.
(4) Either I, or a small group of trusted people, will be responsible for
approving participants.
(5) The website will be *read only*. No one will be able to edit it
directly, including its participants. This means it *won't* be a wiki.
(6) Any participant will have to go to Wikipedia to make any edits to an
article.
(7) Participants will save *particular versions* of articles, not the
current article, whatever it happens to be. There should be a link to
"the most current version" of a given article on Wikipedia, as well.
(8) Implementing the website should not require *any* changes to
Wikipedia. I want to leave Wikipedia alone completely. The only thing
that *might* make sense is to add a link (which should be optional!) to a
corresponding "subset" website article, if it exists. In particular,
"subset" participants should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia editors with
any particular, special status on Wikipedia. And "subset" policy,
whatever it might turn out to be, should **not** be regarded as Wikipedia
policy.
(9) Also, I don't think we should host this website on Nupedia.com.
INTERFACE WITH NUPEDIA
Jimbo has made it clear that he wanted to do something like this with
Nupedia, but it also looks like he doesn't intend to do it anytime soon.
I and others think that this would cause an unnecessary firestorm of
controversy, and several of us are anxious to get to work actually doing
something. So the plan is to proceed using some other address--not
Wikipedia.org and not Nupedia.com--and then, later, we'll have a much
better idea of whether it's a wise move to merge the new review project
with Nupedia.
Personal note: I'm still underemployed, though not unemployed, and so I am
thinking of getting behind Lee Crocker's effort to set up a Free
Encyclopedia Foundation. Even if no funding is forthcoming, I want to
help get this new effort off the ground, because I think it's important.
But I won't be able to work on it anywhere near full-time unless a
Foundation can support my work.
Best,
Larry
--
"We have now sunk to a depth at which the re-statement of the obvious is
the first duty of intelligent men." --George Orwell
Rob Brewer, replying to Ed Poor:
> >Has anyone thought of selective banning?
> >
> >Refuse anonymous edits from the banned IP, but allow
> >signed-in edits.
> >
> >We could supply a message like, "Sorry but due to
> >abuse from IP i.j.k.l, you must sign in to
> >contribute."
>
> I think that's what Erik Moeller had in mind with
> point #2 of his message at 11:47:25 +0100 yesterday,
> and I think it's a good idea. If vandals want to be
> persistent we should at least make them go to the
> trouble of getting a fake hotmail address to sign up
> with ;-)
Yeah, but we MIGHT have to grant sysops the power to suspend or curtail editing privileges of signed-in contributors, if they engage in:
* deleting the entire text of a page for no reason
* inserting random graffiti like "I like chicken" into an article
* nonsense like "Shakespeare was born in Marion, Illinois in 1968"
* the goatse image (?)
This change in policy would require agreement from our ever-benevolent and freedom-loving sponsor, Jimbo Wales.
Assuming any of the 41 sysops can "undo" a block initiated by another sysop, I don't think there will be a problem with abuse of this power. 40 to 1 is a lot of veto power.
Ed Poor
What about a new tag that allows inclusion of images from other
wikipedias?
This would save us a lot of effort to download and re-upload say 200 CIA
factbook maps, 200 country flags and the like (which is not fun to do
especially with current occasionally very slow response times).
Something like [[image:en:Image_US_flagmedium.png]]
Erik Zachte
Ortolan wrote:
> Nonetheless, it seems totally appropriate to solve this problem of
> incoherence and occasionally upsetting behavior (inherent in the
> nature of Wikipedia), by moving properly vetted, well-behaved,
> near-complete, shoe-and-shirt-wearing articles from Wikipedia to
> Nupedia.
I agree. There's a huge difference between "requiring proper attire" and outright racism, to expand on Tom's metaphor.
Suppose a town decides to revoke its vagrancy law and allow homeless people to wander the streets and sleep in the park. It would be perfectly permissible for it to draw the line at access to public facilities like restaurants and libraries, with, e.g., a "no shirt no shoes no service" rule. This isn't "discriminatory", because anyone with the price of a meal can still eat in the restaurant: they just can't come in with their dirty, smelly feet or show their tits. Likewise, a dress or bathing code in a library isn't necessarily discriminatory. Even bums and hobos are welcome to read there without paying.
Whether the "well-behaved" articles are moved to Nupedia, or marked in a special way, or linked from some as yet undefined 3rd sites, is not the issue. Sure, Nupedia can stay intact, Larry, no one's trying to hurt your baby :-)
We need a certification scheme that does not:
* inhibit the free flow of info into the Wikipedia
* establish a (deadly) cabal
* reduce everything to the common denominator
Surely we can think of a scheme that satisfies these requirements, as well as any others that Larry, Cunc, Toby, Elian, et al., have posed.
I won't brag about how much money I've made in software development, but I'll say this: when I've been authorized to collect and refine user requirements, it has always led to a system that knocked the users' socks off!
Ed Poor
"Writing for myself, not my company"