On 07/23/04 16:41, David Gerard wrote:
I've been thinking about it and reading and researching about it and talking incessantly on IRC about it and writing on the lists about it. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:David_Gerard/1.0 This sets out a concise action plan for a paper Wikipedia 1.0, letting the wiki do the work. It sets out milestones and what is needed for them.
Mark Ryan said on IRC, 'huh, I didn't see the page. I thought the email was a bit short for an action plan ...' So I'm sending it to the list too!
- d.
User:David Gerard/1.0 From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
We've wibbled on the mailing lists and various wiki pages about Wikipedia 1.0 for over a year now. We now have an actual publisher asking us for a paper version. We need an action plan.
The key to success will be to harness dilettantism and let the wiki do the work. That's what got us this far.
The plan below includes milestone versions 0.7, 0.8, 0.9 and 1.0. Please think of earlier milestones. To get milestone 0.7, we need a distributed rating system.
"We learned from Nupedia that excessive a priori formalization is a killer. Better to start from a very open point of view, and then upon review, if our end product is starting to be bad in some way, make adjustments based on what we've learned." [1] (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2003-August/005986.html)
Note that this plan is concerned with the single-volume paper Wikipedia 1.0, not the possible CD-ROM plan. (The main difference is we don't need to cut subject areas for the CD-ROM — we have a lot more space.)
(Feel free to edit this. Discussion to the talk page.)
Table of contents 1 Action plan outline 2 Paper Wikipedia will not be a fork 3 Rating systems 4 Selection is the hard part 4.1 Letting the wiki give us milestone 0.7 5 Stand-alone lead sections 6 Non-free images 7 Publisher 8 A paper Wikipedia in every classroom in Africa 9 Links 9.1 1.0-specific (Jimbo) 9.2 Selection process 9.3 Rating mechanisms 9.4 Bringing areas up to scratch
1. Action plan outline
* Jimbo has stated that he doesn't want a fork from the current content, except at the last moment before preparing for print. * We have various plans for rating articles or versions of articles, which we can use to see what's up to scratch. * We have various lists of what should be in a single-volume encyclopedia. Completing these lists would be a fine program for volunteer recruitment, by the way. * In a lot of cases, the [[Wikipedia:lead section]] is going to become the print article. We need stand-alone leads. * We have too many articles with images that are fair-use, permission-granted, non-profit or of other non-free status. * We have an interested publisher, one who actually gets it, waiting in the wings. * We want a paper Wikipedia in every classroom in Africa.
+------------------------------------------------------------------------+ |Milestone| Result | Work to get | Prerequisites | | | | there | before starting | |---------+----------------------------+---------------+-----------------| | | |Just set a | | | |A book's worth of |minimum rating |A rating system | |0.7 |sufficiently highly-rated |and then pull |running for a | | |articles. |from the |month or two. | | | |database. | | |---------+----------------------------+---------------+-----------------| | | |Writing | | | | |articles of |A plan of space | |0.8 |A more balanced selection of|sufficient |per topic, so we | | |coverage. |quality to fill|know where the | | | |gaps - heavy |gaps are. | | | |lifting. | | |---------+----------------------------+---------------+-----------------| | | |More heavy |Enthusiastic | | |Coverage-complete, with the |lifting. More |determination. | |0.9 |right selection of |polishing than |Grim | | |tolerable-to-good articles. |writing. Fact |determination. | | | |checking. | | |---------+----------------------------+---------------+-----------------| | | |Improve |Good writing. | |1.0 |Polished 0.9. |tolerable |Proofreading. | | | |articles to |Editing. Patching| | | |good. |remaining holes. | |---------+----------------------------+---------------+-----------------| |Paper | | |Precise | |Wikipedia|1.0 prepared for print. |Prepress work. |requirements from| |1.0 | | |the publisher. | +------------------------------------------------------------------------+
2. Paper Wikipedia will not be a fork
Jimbo has decreed that we are to fork for print at the last second, rather than fork now and polish. I suggest we trust his vision.
However, consensus approaches the idea of rating particularly good versions of specific articles.
3. Rating systems
Various of these are being floated. Current consensus is approaching rating specific versions on four or five criteria; either yes/no, 0-4 points or 0-10 points.
This is good because it will be easy and people will do it casually. Harnessing dilettantism, that's the wiki way.
(For edit war hot spots, expect vote spamming.)
4. Selection is the hard part
[[Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics]] gives us some idea of what should go into a single-volume reference. We also need to work out roughly how the Columbia or Concise Britannica break down into space per topic area. (Do we have any work in this area already?)
I predict the all-in shitfight will be in turf wars. Selection, as every partisan editorial group tries to get its articles into the final cut. Not at the level of editing the articles themselves — an approval mechanism will handle that — I'm talking about telling people that their area won't get all the articles it might want in. If *any*.
The worst thing is that we'll have to cut back the areas we're actually really strong in.
4.1. Letting the wiki give us milestone 0.7
The peer-rating system for article versions (as is mooted on the mailing list) which looks likely to happen anyway, will help 1.0 a lot. Rather than set some poor bastard to rating thousands of articles, we let the wiki do the work for us.
1. Wait till a lot of articles (or a fair few) have been rated. 2. Set a cutoff level that gives you a book's worth of articles. 3. Examine just how imbalanced we are.
This will give us Wikipedia 0.7, let's say. 0.8 can be better, 0.9 can be area-selection-complete, 1.0 can be a polished 0.9.
What we need is a way to let the wiki do the work for step 3 above. Is there a way to harness dilettantism to achieve consensus on what to cut and what to boost?
Bringing areas up to scratch will still be real heavy lifting. How much real work, we can't know until we get 0.7.
5. Stand-alone lead sections
These are currently optional (according to the MoS), but will become very important because for long articles, we may just pull the lead section as the print article. [[News style]] and [[Wikipedia:summary style]] are your friends.
6. Non-free images
These should be cleared and replaced where at all feasible.
Note, by the way, that the publisher would probably have a much easier time getting copyright clearances for a fixed paper volume than we do for a changeable open-content encyclopedia (e.g. [[Tube map]], where not having the map would be ridiculous) — though I don't expect anyone to agree this is a good idea.
7. Publisher
We need to know precisely what they require from us, so we know what to aim for.
* Size in pages, translate to bytes * How much space for images * Format for publishing
A lot of the prepress gruntwork can likely be done by Wikipedia volunteers for free. Also, we should be able to test automated systems on 0.7 onwards.
8. A paper Wikipedia in every classroom in Africa
How do we get a list of schools? How many copies is that? How cheaply can we print a usably good book?
We can almost certainly hitch a ride with other charities for the distribution.
9. Links (external and internal):
9.1. 1.0-specific (Jimbo)
* [[m:Wikimedia#Wikipedia_1.0]] - Jimbo's dream of a copy in every school in Africa * [[User:Jimbo Wales/Pushing To 1.0]] - Jimbo's official page, lots of rambling discussion * [Wikipedia-l (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-August/011384.html) Wikipedia v. Britannica] - ideas about 1.0 * [WikiEN-l (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-February/011045.html) Print edition] (Jimbo, 26 Feb 2004) - first bite from this publisher
9.2. Selection process
* [[Wikipedia:List of encyclopedia topics]] — this list is key to giving us balance. Need someone to abstract it. * [[Wikipedia:Topics where Wikipedia is weak]] * [Wikipedia-l (http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikipedia-l/2003-August/011402.html) Wikipedia v. Britannica] (Tarquin, 18 Aug 2003) - editors as selectors rather than text editors
9.3. Rating mechanisms
* [[m:Article validation]] (current discussion) * [[Wikipedia:Approval mechanism]] - proposed ideas for a review method * [[User:Andrewa/Wikipedia approval mechanism]] - long rambling on approval mechanisms * [[m:Referees]] and [[m:Referees/1]]
9.4. Bringing areas up to scratch
* [[Wikipedia:WikiProject Aircraft/Strategy]] * [[Wikipedia:Math 1.0]] * [[Wikipedia:Topics where Wikipedia is weak]]