On the English Wikipedia (but this is coming on other ones) we have a large amount of articles about individual highschools, most of which have nothing special and are just like the next highschool.
These articles tend: * to lack perspective ** give name of personnel who are private persons, which is unencyclopedic (ex: there's a teacher called foobar) ** devote inordinate length to individual, non notable incidents (exemple: some incident because of drunk students at a party 2 years ago)
* to be a magnet for vandalism, from disgruntled or bored students ** this vandalism can give details about the personal life of some minors ** it often also is demeaning ** and sometimes contains outright libel (accusing teachers or principals of being pedophiles etc.)
* not to be patrolled much ** they interest few people
* to lack sources ** unique source tends to be the school's own cite; in theory we should be able to have multiple sources, including independent ones
In short, they have little encyclopedic interest, are a target for underage vandals, create lots of work for the OTRS folks and the Foundation.
However, when OTRS folks delete such articles as "non notable", they often face angry remarks, accusations of lack of democratic process, and what else; often from people who apparently feel strongly enough to keep the article, but not strongly enough to patrol it for abuse.
Other users, including admins, seem to entirely ignore [[Wikipedia:Schools]] as applicable policy.
In fact, I'll also suggest altering the policy in a way: the simple fact that two "celebrities" from a school have an article on WP should not be cause to create an article about this school.
Tons of non notable schools have had a celebrity go through. That does not make them notable.
What would be relevant is: if many celebrities have gone through it. For instance, Eton in England is notable because many upper class British men, in high positions, have passed through it.
In any case, I think the Foundation should issue a clear statement that admins, especially from OTRS, can CSD:A7 school articles that do not demonstrate notability. Otherwise it's not manageable.
David Monniaux wrote:
On the English Wikipedia (but this is coming on other ones) we have a large amount of articles about individual highschools, most of which have nothing special and are just like the next highschool.
These articles tend: * to lack perspective [...] However, when OTRS folks delete such articles as "non notable", they often face angry remarks, accusations of lack of democratic process,
I'm not interested in schools or whether they are worthy of articles, but I'm intrigued by the mathematical nature of this problem.
The people who wrote the articles lack perspective (on other schools than their own) and when the article is removed, they lack perspective of having articles removed. Aren't these necessary phenomena at the thin end of [[the long tail]]?
If we had complete visitor statistics from web logs (including Squid caches and reusers such as Answers.com), then we could point to numbers saying that this article has only been viewed so many times in the last year, and therefore it is not notable. But even if this were practically achievable (which today it is not), would that be a useful solution?
All classic reasoning about notability is focused on the fat end of the tail. Oscars are awarded to the best films, bookstores list the best selling books, the winners get the prizes. But how can we achieve fairness, balance, equal coverage at the thin end?
In any written text (see [[en:Zipf's law]]), of all the words used (the vocabulary), about half of them will occurr only once. If the same mathematical distribution is applicable to topics in an encyclopedia, about half of all articles in Wikipedia are at the very thinnest end of the tail. If we were to use visitor statistics to cut away the least notable topics, we could easily cut away half of our stock. And that's hardly what we want.
So is there any other math we could do here?
Lars Aronsson a écrit :
In any written text (see [[en:Zipf's law]]), of all the words used (the vocabulary), about half of them will occurr only once. If the same mathematical distribution is applicable to topics in an encyclopedia, about half of all articles in Wikipedia are at the very thinnest end of the tail. If we were to use visitor statistics to cut away the least notable topics, we could easily cut away half of our stock. And that's hardly what we want.
So is there any other math we could do here?
Perhaps a notion of service:
A Wikipedia article is interesting if it offers a service supplemental to what is available, say, from the subject's official site. If the article is just a copy of the information in the official site, with unprovable anecdotes thrown in, then it does not offer a service.
Also, with respect to schools, the thing is that Wikipedia is not a directory. It does not aim to index every company, individual etc. in the world. So we have to resort to measurements of what makes somebody or some institution "special".
*Some* highschools are special. Some have inordinate numbers of alumni going into high positions. Some frequently appear in the press, in novels, etc. Some have exceptional characteristics. These should have articles.
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
However, this "unless" is problematic. A printed encyclopedia in 20 volumes can only contain so many articles, and has to cut off the long tail. Wikipedia is far bigger and steadily growing. Small towns with 25,000 inhabitants in Sweden would never have an article in Encyclopaedia Britannica, but now have articles in the English Wikipedia, and everybody seem to agree that they *are* sufficiently notable. So where is the limit drawn? Should the three schools in that town also have articles? Maybe the answer is: Not now, when Wikipedia only has 1.6 million articles, because these schools are not among the 1.6 million most notable objects in this world. But in five years time, when Wikipedia has 20 million articles, this might be different.
Maybe if the article is added now, and in five years time it is still one of the least used ones, ranking not 1.6M but 20M, then we know that now was not the right time to add this article? In that case, notability is not a property of the topic itself, but an issue in which order to add articles to Wikipedia. But it is difficult to assess today if a topic has rank 20M when Wikipedia only has 1.6M articles.
Can we compute a rank of how much each article is used now, and relate this to how many articles existed at the time when each article was created? Then we would know how premature the addition of each article was.
Again, my position is not that of judging what should be included now. I'm only trying to understand the math behind this.
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
Anyhow, just because not that many people go to it *right now* does not mean it's not notable. Junior high schools, elementary schools, sure, but larger-volume schools that have upwards of 1000 students at any given time are certainly notable.
We may not have someone to maintain them, but that's because while we have RamBot, we don't have SchoolBot. Maybe we should. (and unlike city/town articles, we'd also need a SchoolAntiVandalBot to monitor all the changes to those articles... the problem with high schools is that those most interested in them tend to be their current students, and their current students tend to include a large percentage of dipshit vandals).
Mark
On 25/01/07, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
However, this "unless" is problematic. A printed encyclopedia in 20 volumes can only contain so many articles, and has to cut off the long tail. Wikipedia is far bigger and steadily growing. Small towns with 25,000 inhabitants in Sweden would never have an article in Encyclopaedia Britannica, but now have articles in the English Wikipedia, and everybody seem to agree that they *are* sufficiently notable. So where is the limit drawn? Should the three schools in that town also have articles? Maybe the answer is: Not now, when Wikipedia only has 1.6 million articles, because these schools are not among the 1.6 million most notable objects in this world. But in five years time, when Wikipedia has 20 million articles, this might be different.
Maybe if the article is added now, and in five years time it is still one of the least used ones, ranking not 1.6M but 20M, then we know that now was not the right time to add this article? In that case, notability is not a property of the topic itself, but an issue in which order to add articles to Wikipedia. But it is difficult to assess today if a topic has rank 20M when Wikipedia only has 1.6M articles.
Can we compute a rank of how much each article is used now, and relate this to how many articles existed at the time when each article was created? Then we would know how premature the addition of each article was.
Again, my position is not that of judging what should be included now. I'm only trying to understand the math behind this.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 1/25/07, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
Anyhow, just because not that many people go to it *right now* does not mean it's not notable. Junior high schools, elementary schools, sure, but larger-volume schools that have upwards of 1000 students at any given time are certainly notable.
We may not have someone to maintain them, but that's because while we have RamBot, we don't have SchoolBot. Maybe we should. (and unlike city/town articles, we'd also need a SchoolAntiVandalBot to monitor all the changes to those articles... the problem with high schools is that those most interested in them tend to be their current students, and their current students tend to include a large percentage of dipshit vandals).
Mark
On 25/01/07, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
However, this "unless" is problematic. A printed encyclopedia in 20 volumes can only contain so many articles, and has to cut off the long tail. Wikipedia is far bigger and steadily growing. Small towns with 25,000 inhabitants in Sweden would never have an article in Encyclopaedia Britannica, but now have articles in the English Wikipedia, and everybody seem to agree that they *are* sufficiently notable. So where is the limit drawn? Should the three schools in that town also have articles? Maybe the answer is: Not now, when Wikipedia only has 1.6 million articles, because these schools are not among the 1.6 million most notable objects in this world. But in five years time, when Wikipedia has 20 million articles, this might be different.
Maybe if the article is added now, and in five years time it is still one of the least used ones, ranking not 1.6M but 20M, then we know that now was not the right time to add this article? In that case, notability is not a property of the topic itself, but an issue in which order to add articles to Wikipedia. But it is difficult to assess today if a topic has rank 20M when Wikipedia only has 1.6M articles.
Can we compute a rank of how much each article is used now, and relate this to how many articles existed at the time when each article was created? Then we would know how premature the addition of each article was.
Again, my position is not that of judging what should be included now. I'm only trying to understand the math behind this.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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As it seems, there is no consensus, even among the few of us in this exchange, because i do not think size is enough to make a school notable. What makes it notable is either things that may have happened there, or notable alumni. Notable events are the same standard as any other N or N-news. For most, it will be alumni, and the practical question comes down to: how many- (of course it also depends who they are--One Nobel prize winner is enough) ). AfD seems to be deleting high school articles with only 1 notable alumnus and no other special features. I am not sure what the attitude would be towards 2, 3, etc. I am not even sure where I would draw the line.
Intermediate and elementary schools are another matter; I wouldn't use the alumni criterion here for anyone less than the President, and there are rarely news events.
The suggestion of giving each of the schools in a town section in a longer article is workable, though there be problems with cities.
I recognize, however, that in much of the US, high schools, and especially high school athletic teams, may be the center of community life. So merging a single town school in with the article for the town is another possibility.
On 25/01/07, The Cunctator cunctator@gmail.com wrote:
Is this really a Foundation-level issue?
I wondered that too. Did David ask on en:wp or on wikien-l? If so, what was the verdict there?
- d.
On 1/25/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
The Cunctator a écrit :
Is this really a Foundation-level issue?
The problem is that complaints about school articles generate a steady flow to OTRS, which is picked up by Foundation volunteers. Then, the decisions of these volunteers are challenged.
There needs to be more visibility into these problems by the community at large. First I'd heard that OTRS was seeing lots of school-related complaints.
Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
George Herbert wrote:
There needs to be more visibility into these problems by the community at large. First I'd heard that OTRS was seeing lots of school-related complaints.
There is a special queue called "schools".
Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
Typical complaints: an article (or a former version thereof) will, in increasing order of severity: * Contain true, but anecdotal or biasedly presented information on the school. (Example: three years ago, there was a party where students were drunk. Who cares? This happens everywhere.) * Contain false allegations against the school. Example: the school is a known drug trafficking spot. * Contain information on the private life of named individuals, especially minors. Example: calling a certain female student a slut, saying that such or such teacher is homosexual, or similar. * Contain libellious accusations against named individuals. Example: the principal was accused of statutory rape.
That kind of things probably comes from students or former students. They may stay for days because these articles are largely unpatrolled. I suspect those who do that do not quite understand the severity of what they do, that they can create real harm, especially when individuals are named.
Complaints come from school administrators or parents.
On 26/01/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
Typical complaints: an article (or a former version thereof) will, in increasing order of severity:
- Contain true, but anecdotal or biasedly presented information on the
school. (Example: three years ago, there was a party where students were drunk. Who cares? This happens everywhere.)
- Contain false allegations against the school. Example: the school is a
known drug trafficking spot.
- Contain information on the private life of named individuals,
especially minors. Example: calling a certain female student a slut, saying that such or such teacher is homosexual, or similar.
- Contain libellious accusations against named individuals. Example: the
principal was accused of statutory rape. That kind of things probably comes from students or former students. They may stay for days because these articles are largely unpatrolled. I suspect those who do that do not quite understand the severity of what they do, that they can create real harm, especially when individuals are named. Complaints come from school administrators or parents.
The on-wiki way to deal with this is let people in the schools project know there's a serious problem and these articles need serious patrolling, with the level of concern of living biographies. (I say the schools project because that's where the school entry advocates gather.)
Anyone from the schools project on wikien-l? Can you get some patrolling together?
- d.
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
P.S. Remember that notability is subjective, and if improperly applied, may lead to systemic bias.
On 1/26/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
Typical complaints: an article (or a former version thereof) will, in increasing order of severity:
- Contain true, but anecdotal or biasedly presented information on the
school. (Example: three years ago, there was a party where students were drunk. Who cares? This happens everywhere.)
- Contain false allegations against the school. Example: the school is a
known drug trafficking spot.
- Contain information on the private life of named individuals,
especially minors. Example: calling a certain female student a slut, saying that such or such teacher is homosexual, or similar.
- Contain libellious accusations against named individuals. Example: the
principal was accused of statutory rape. That kind of things probably comes from students or former students. They may stay for days because these articles are largely unpatrolled. I suspect those who do that do not quite understand the severity of what they do, that they can create real harm, especially when individuals are named. Complaints come from school administrators or parents.
The on-wiki way to deal with this is let people in the schools project know there's a serious problem and these articles need serious patrolling, with the level of concern of living biographies. (I say the schools project because that's where the school entry advocates gather.)
Anyone from the schools project on wikien-l? Can you get some patrolling together?
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
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J.L.W.S. The Special One stated for the record:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
Someone must state that it is a school. That confers notability.
We did manage to delete the Hogwarts-manque "pay us and we will teach you magic spells" scam, but it took some effort.
- -- Sean Barrett | Modern art is what happens when painters stop sean@epoptic.com | looking at girls and persuade themselves | that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi
On 1/26/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
The word "school" appears somewhere in the article.
Seriously. There was a VfD a couple years back that garnered a large number of "keep, schools are inherently notable" votes, even though the article was a hoax and the school in question did not actually exist. Another VfD from around that time resulted in a "keep" for the same reasons, when article was actually a vanity piece about a one-person business that happened to have "school" as part of its name.
On 26/01/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
The word "school" appears somewhere in the article. Seriously. There was a VfD a couple years back that garnered a large number of "keep, schools are inherently notable" votes, even though the article was a hoax and the school in question did not actually exist. Another VfD from around that time resulted in a "keep" for the same reasons, when article was actually a vanity piece about a one-person business that happened to have "school" as part of its name.
Yeah. It's an unfortunate reaction to various concerted efforts to purge the school articles. This is part of why the structure of en:wp AFD is demonstrably problematic.
- d.
Well, the good thing is that both those of us who would like to get rid of many of these articles and those of us who would like to keep them, agree that AfD isn't working :-)
Mark
On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
The word "school" appears somewhere in the article. Seriously. There was a VfD a couple years back that garnered a large number of "keep, schools are inherently notable" votes, even though the article was a hoax and the school in question did not actually exist. Another VfD from around that time resulted in a "keep" for the same reasons, when article was actually a vanity piece about a one-person business that happened to have "school" as part of its name.
Yeah. It's an unfortunate reaction to various concerted efforts to purge the school articles. This is part of why the structure of en:wp AFD is demonstrably problematic.
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 1/26/07, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Well, the good thing is that both those of us who would like to get rid of many of these articles and those of us who would like to keep them, agree that AfD isn't working :-)
Mark
On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
The word "school" appears somewhere in the article. Seriously. There was a VfD a couple years back that garnered a large number of "keep, schools are inherently notable" votes, even though the article was a hoax and the school in question did not actually exist. Another VfD from around that time resulted in a "keep" for the same reasons, when article was actually a vanity piece about a one-person business that happened to have "school" as part of its name.
Yeah. It's an unfortunate reaction to various concerted efforts to purge the school articles. This is part of why the structure of en:wp AFD is demonstrably problematic.
AFD illustrates a number of things, one of which is that there's no consensus on notability on a number of topics.
I detest having to follow AFD closely to see if someone's trying to try another "establish a new consensus by deleting a bunch of things" runs. I often forget to for a week and then find that something horrible happened while my attention was elsewhere.
I'm following AfD mainly to keep from deleting scientists etc-- nn academic is a very common reason, used sometimes without reading the article --and if its not a scientist but a scholar in the humanities, where you cant say 120 papers published, it's much worse. (Seriously, Ive seen articles with 3 honorary doctorates get nominated not just for AfD but for speedy) So I do see all the schools, and I tend to have a certain impatience about other people's notable schools. (my own HS is in there of course, and the elementary school just had a reunion, so maybe I will try it. )
In common-law based systems, the responsibility for keeping something like AfD consistent is up to something like Deletion Review--which is just as bad or worse, and 90% of the times decides to sustain deletions for the few that people bother with--its much easier to wait a while and recreate. There are some proposals for reform, so take a look.
In my opinion,about 1/2 the trouble with the real junk would be solved by making first edits & edits from ip addresses not visible immediately. Perhaps there's ,more that can be done programatically--spotting personal names in ip-addressed edits, even spotting personal names in edits for anything in the school category, etc. Rejecting articles under 15 words., and whatever ingenuity can suggest. But these sort of approaches seem to be against the ethos. --DGG
On 1/26/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Well, the good thing is that both those of us who would like to get rid of many of these articles and those of us who would like to keep them, agree that AfD isn't working :-)
Mark
On 26/01/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 26/01/07, Mark Wagner carnildo@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/26/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
What, if any, are the notability criteria for schools?
The word "school" appears somewhere in the article. Seriously. There was a VfD a couple years back that garnered a
large
number of "keep, schools are inherently notable" votes, even though the article was a hoax and the school in question did not actually exist. Another VfD from around that time resulted in a "keep" for
the
same reasons, when article was actually a vanity piece about a one-person business that happened to have "school" as part of its name.
Yeah. It's an unfortunate reaction to various concerted efforts to purge the school articles. This is part of why the structure of en:wp AFD is demonstrably problematic.
AFD illustrates a number of things, one of which is that there's no consensus on notability on a number of topics.
I detest having to follow AFD closely to see if someone's trying to try another "establish a new consensus by deleting a bunch of things" runs. I often forget to for a week and then find that something horrible happened while my attention was elsewhere.
-- -george william herbert george.herbert@gmail.com
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
David Monniaux wrote:
George Herbert wrote:
Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
Typical complaints: an article (or a former version thereof) will, in increasing order of severity:
- Contain true, but anecdotal or biasedly presented information on the
school. (Example: three years ago, there was a party where students were drunk. Who cares? This happens everywhere.)
- Contain false allegations against the school. Example: the school is a
known drug trafficking spot.
- Contain information on the private life of named individuals,
especially minors. Example: calling a certain female student a slut, saying that such or such teacher is homosexual, or similar.
- Contain libellious accusations against named individuals. Example: the
principal was accused of statutory rape.
These are all things that can be removed from the article without deleting the article.
Ec
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/25/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
The Cunctator a écrit :
Is this really a Foundation-level issue?
The problem is that complaints about school articles generate a steady flow to OTRS, which is picked up by Foundation volunteers. Then, the decisions of these volunteers are challenged.
There needs to be more visibility into these problems by the community at large.
What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though? David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much about it.
First I'd heard that OTRS was seeing lots of school-related complaints.
Between that and non-notable people with flytrap articles, it's a big timewaster. Article-deletion complaints, too, many of which deserve more attention than we can give (but that's another rant, and one I've made this month already)
Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
Surprisingly often, these are explicit allegations of illegal activity - "The headmaster is a convicted paedo" and the like - or lots and lots of junk personally-identifiable vandalism - "Mickey Smith is ---".
A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale - many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't *so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because, well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the hardest to deal with, in many ways)
Andrew Gray wrote:
On 26/01/07, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/25/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
The problem is that complaints about school articles generate a steady flow to OTRS, which is picked up by Foundation volunteers. Then, the decisions of these volunteers are challenged.
There needs to be more visibility into these problems by the community at large.
What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though? David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much about it.
The quarterly notices sound like a good idea, especially if they are well publicized.
Can you describe in more detail what types of complaints?
Surprisingly often, these are explicit allegations of illegal activity
- "The headmaster is a convicted paedo" and the like - or lots and
lots of junk personally-identifiable vandalism - "Mickey Smith is ---".
Getting rid of this stuff is a no-brainer.
A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale
- many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or
another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't *so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because, well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the hardest to deal with, in many ways)
A complaint about this from school administrators should be viewed as an opportunity, or what many educators would call a "teachable moment". A principal could refer the problem to a trusted student, or make the article and all its deficiencies an opportunity for a class discussion or other project.
Ec
On 29/01/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though? David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much about it.
A weekly OTRS report in the Signpost would be a really good idea, actually, and would probably help a lot.
A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale
- many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or
another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't *so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because, well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the hardest to deal with, in many ways)
The main problem with our school articles is that they're largely crap, and therefore "non-notable" has been used as the excuse to delete them.
- d.
We might try having specific guideline for what is *not* enough: Infobox data: | name = Bronx High School of Science | native_name = | logo = | motto = | established = (unless pre 1880 ) | city = | state = | province = | country = USA | campus = | type = | affiliation = | president = | principal = | headmaster = | rector = | dean = | founder = | chaplain = | chairman = | head_label = | head = | faculty = | students = | enrollment = | grades = | address = | district = | oversight = | accreditation = | mascot = | colors = | newspaper = | yearbook = | Phone | Email | admission |Tuition | website = | picture = as well as: size of building date of building unless pre-1880 names of teaches and coaches names of sports & athletic teams (unless unusual for type) names of other groups (unless unusual for type) typical daily schedule: typical pattern of courses: names & masters of houses or other divisions subjects offered (unless unusual for type) events held nearby not connected with school
(unless any of these should be exceptionally notable, which still gives some wiggle-room--etc. Problem areas, % going to further ed, SAT scores, Advanced Placement Classes rank in district, --all these are notable above some level, but the level will depend on area and type
----- I've tested it on public & private high schools in NYC & suburbs: it fits, except of course that some schools I know to be notable have not taken the opportunity to put anything about their notability in the article.
(and some notable ones have inserted long paragraphs about their perfectly ordinary parking lots--we will also need a std for material that does not belong.
How does it work elsewhere?
On 1/30/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/01/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though? David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much about it.
A weekly OTRS report in the Signpost would be a really good idea, actually, and would probably help a lot.
A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale
- many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or
another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't *so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because, well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the hardest to deal with, in many ways)
The main problem with our school articles is that they're largely crap, and therefore "non-notable" has been used as the excuse to delete them.
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
STDs tend not to help anybody. I don't think any of us _need_ them, and I think they are best avoided.
Mark
On 30/01/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
We might try having specific guideline for what is *not* enough: Infobox data: | name = Bronx High School of Science | native_name = | logo = | motto = | established = (unless pre 1880 ) | city = | state = | province = | country = USA | campus = | type = | affiliation = | president = | principal = | headmaster = | rector = | dean = | founder = | chaplain = | chairman = | head_label = | head = | faculty = | students = | enrollment = | grades = | address = | district = | oversight = | accreditation = | mascot = | colors = | newspaper = | yearbook = | Phone | Email | admission |Tuition | website = | picture = as well as: size of building date of building unless pre-1880 names of teaches and coaches names of sports & athletic teams (unless unusual for type) names of other groups (unless unusual for type) typical daily schedule: typical pattern of courses: names & masters of houses or other divisions subjects offered (unless unusual for type) events held nearby not connected with school
(unless any of these should be exceptionally notable, which still gives some wiggle-room--etc. Problem areas, % going to further ed, SAT scores, Advanced Placement Classes rank in district, --all these are notable above some level, but the level will depend on area and type
I've tested it on public & private high schools in NYC & suburbs: it fits, except of course that some schools I know to be notable have not taken the opportunity to put anything about their notability in the article.
(and some notable ones have inserted long paragraphs about their perfectly ordinary parking lots--we will also need a std for material that does not belong.
How does it work elsewhere?
On 1/30/07, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
On 29/01/07, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com wrote:
What can we really do to contact the nebulous "community", though? David and I and others have been bitching and moaning about this at the slightest provocation for six months, but the project is big and you can only chat to so many people. Short of putting out quarterly Signpost announcements saying "The following seven areas of coverage are the ones that piss our readers off the most. Please make them less crap, we'd all live happier lives", I'm not sure we can easily do much about it.
A weekly OTRS report in the Signpost would be a really good idea, actually, and would probably help a lot.
A common but less worrying issue is a simple lack of context and scale
- many of these articles are seized by one enterprising student or
another to write about the school as they see it; these usually aren't *so* bad, but they tend to have a very blurred line as to what is and isn't appropriate material, which then leads into articles that the school is understandably annoyed by the existence of simply because, well, they're linked with this amateurish, hit-and-miss, erratically accurate and conceptually blinkered article. (These are often the hardest to deal with, in many ways)
The main problem with our school articles is that they're largely crap, and therefore "non-notable" has been used as the excuse to delete them.
- d.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Well, if we have articles for towns with just 2 inhabitants just because RamBot made them, and as long as we're allowing articles for Swedish towns with over 25K inhabitants, I don't see the issue with allowing articles for all high schools with more than 25K Current students+Living Alumni. If not that, you could set a higher boundary, like 50K. (I didn't count dead alumni because they're dead and frankly, dead people don't count. absentees can vote, as can expats, at least in many countries, but dead people can't vote anywhere)
Really, just because they're voting to delete it at AfD doesn't mean it deserves to be deleted. The article deletion mechanism on Wikipedia is badly broken -- this is no better than [[Wikipedia:Quickpolls]] (I wonder who around here remembers those? fun, fun, fun) except for the deletion of pages. It's mob rule of things that shouldn't be ruled by a mob (just because the 50 people on AfD haven't heard of it and can't find it in their google searches does not mean it doesn't belong in an encyclopaedia.)
Speaking of deletion... Despite what the Wikipedia article about the Pokémon argument says about the articles having been "improved", most of the Pokémon articles still have much less information than they should to be allowed to be kept, imho, considering there are over 400 of the critters (back when I cared about them, there were 151, and for a few months before I lost interest, 251), and many of them have either 1) never been mentioned on the anime and are unimportant to the plots of any of the games or 2) have only been mentioned in one episode on the anime and are totally unimportant in the plots of the games. I'm not sure why we can't combine them all into 4 or so Pokédex-type articles, with ''Main article: [[THIS POKEMON]]'' for the ones that really _are_ notable and have information about them.
Mark
On 25/01/07, David Goodman dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
On 1/25/07, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
Anyhow, just because not that many people go to it *right now* does not mean it's not notable. Junior high schools, elementary schools, sure, but larger-volume schools that have upwards of 1000 students at any given time are certainly notable.
We may not have someone to maintain them, but that's because while we have RamBot, we don't have SchoolBot. Maybe we should. (and unlike city/town articles, we'd also need a SchoolAntiVandalBot to monitor all the changes to those articles... the problem with high schools is that those most interested in them tend to be their current students, and their current students tend to include a large percentage of dipshit vandals).
Mark
On 25/01/07, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
However, this "unless" is problematic. A printed encyclopedia in 20 volumes can only contain so many articles, and has to cut off the long tail. Wikipedia is far bigger and steadily growing. Small towns with 25,000 inhabitants in Sweden would never have an article in Encyclopaedia Britannica, but now have articles in the English Wikipedia, and everybody seem to agree that they *are* sufficiently notable. So where is the limit drawn? Should the three schools in that town also have articles? Maybe the answer is: Not now, when Wikipedia only has 1.6 million articles, because these schools are not among the 1.6 million most notable objects in this world. But in five years time, when Wikipedia has 20 million articles, this might be different.
Maybe if the article is added now, and in five years time it is still one of the least used ones, ranking not 1.6M but 20M, then we know that now was not the right time to add this article? In that case, notability is not a property of the topic itself, but an issue in which order to add articles to Wikipedia. But it is difficult to assess today if a topic has rank 20M when Wikipedia only has 1.6M articles.
Can we compute a rank of how much each article is used now, and relate this to how many articles existed at the time when each article was created? Then we would know how premature the addition of each article was.
Again, my position is not that of judging what should be included now. I'm only trying to understand the math behind this.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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As it seems, there is no consensus, even among the few of us in this exchange, because i do not think size is enough to make a school notable. What makes it notable is either things that may have happened there, or notable alumni. Notable events are the same standard as any other N or N-news. For most, it will be alumni, and the practical question comes down to: how many- (of course it also depends who they are--One Nobel prize winner is enough) ). AfD seems to be deleting high school articles with only 1 notable alumnus and no other special features. I am not sure what the attitude would be towards 2, 3, etc. I am not even sure where I would draw the line.
Intermediate and elementary schools are another matter; I wouldn't use the alumni criterion here for anyone less than the President, and there are rarely news events.
The suggestion of giving each of the schools in a town section in a longer article is workable, though there be problems with cities.
I recognize, however, that in much of the US, high schools, and especially high school athletic teams, may be the center of community life. So merging a single town school in with the article for the town is another possibility.
-- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
The Pokémon articles do not generate angry complaints. They are used to mock Wikipedia, but are not a major target for libel and other issues taking up precious resources.
David Monniaux wrote:
The Pokémon articles do not generate angry complaints. They are used to mock Wikipedia, but are not a major target for libel and other issues taking up precious resources.
I generally consider the school articles relatively more important than the Pokémon articles, though the writing on the latter appears more thorough. Still I would oppose deleting either. If the school articles contain libel and other sundry vandalism remove the libel and vandalism. Stop using that asd an excuse for removing material that you don't like.
Ec
Ray Saintonge a écrit :
I generally consider the school articles relatively more important than the Pokémon articles, though the writing on the latter appears more thorough. Still I would oppose deleting either. If the school articles contain libel and other sundry vandalism remove the libel and vandalism. Stop using that asd an excuse for removing material that you don't like.
I personally don't give a shit about school articles per se.
If you're volunteering to patrol them, be my guest.
David Monniaux wrote:
Ray Saintonge a écrit :
I generally consider the school articles relatively more important than the Pokémon articles, though the writing on the latter appears more thorough. Still I would oppose deleting either. If the school articles contain libel and other sundry vandalism remove the libel and vandalism. Stop using that asd an excuse for removing material that you don't like.
I personally don't give a shit about school articles per se.
If you're volunteering to patrol them, be my guest.
Perhaps patrolling these articles should be in the hands of WikiProjects based on a limited geographical area. They should have a better handle on schools wihtin their area.
Ec
Mark Williamson wrote:
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
That seems high. If a school has 1,000 graduates each year it would take 50 years to reach that number.
Ec
"Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net wrote in message news:45BB0196.7070204@telus.net...
Mark Williamson wrote:
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
That seems high. If a school has 1,000 graduates each year it would take 50 years to reach that number.
Well, that seems reasonable, in fact in England (where I'm from) I imagine a high proportion of schools are older than 50 years. The two that I know about (mine - an inner-city comp, founded in the 19th century, and the school my Girlfriend teaches at, est. 1917) are significantly older!.
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
Mark Clements wrote:
"Ray Saintonge" saintonge@telus.net wrote
Mark Williamson wrote:
The thing about high schools is that they have alumni. A particularly large high school could have, I don't know, maybe 50,000 alumni? How off am I?
That seems high. If a school has 1,000 graduates each year it would take 50 years to reach that number.
Well, that seems reasonable, in fact in England (where I'm from) I imagine a high proportion of schools are older than 50 years. The two that I know about (mine - an inner-city comp, founded in the 19th century, and the school my Girlfriend teaches at, est. 1917) are significantly older!.
- Mark Clements (HappyDog)
It's a valid consideration. Still a school with a four year programme would have in excess of 4000 student to graduate 1000, allowing for dropouts. That's quite a big school. For older schools, the long dead alumni can no longer be considered alumni for the purpose of having interest in Wikipedia articles about their school. A more accurate estimate of the alumni might be obtained by applying actuarial tables at the age of graduation.
Ec
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Ec
Ray Saintonge schreef:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Ec
Hoi, That would be true if only companies that are traded on stock exchanges are notable. That is a fallacy in its own right. Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Hoi, That would be true if only companies that are traded on stock exchanges are notable.
I said "a" reasonable criterion, not "the" reasonable criterion. It would be one of possibly several criteria that could serve independently to justify an article.
That is a fallacy in its own right.
I see no logical fallacy in such a criterion.
Ec
Ray Saintonge schreef:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Hoi, That would be true if only companies that are traded on stock exchanges are notable.
I said "a" reasonable criterion, not "the" reasonable criterion. It would be one of possibly several criteria that could serve independently to justify an article.
That is a fallacy in its own right.
I see no logical fallacy in such a criterion.
Ec
Hoi, When only one criterion is produced without any others, it is not self evident how your proposed criterion would work. If you consider that I misinterpreted what you said, than by giving your rationale, you apparently do agree that it is a fallacy to consider the listing on a stock to be the justification for an article. Some companies that failed miserably are notable because of what they stood for. Thanks, GerardM
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
David Monniaux wrote:
But there's no reason we should have an article on my neighbouring highschool, unless we also want articles on every company or organization...
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
That would be true if only companies that are traded on stock exchanges are notable.
I said "a" reasonable criterion, not "the" reasonable criterion. It would be one of possibly several criteria that could serve independently to justify an article.
That is a fallacy in its own right.
I see no logical fallacy in such a criterion.
When only one criterion is produced without any others, it is not self evident how your proposed criterion would work. If you consider that I misinterpreted what you said, than by giving your rationale, you apparently do agree that it is a fallacy to consider the listing on a stock to be the justification for an article. Some companies that failed miserably are notable because of what they stood for.
It's hard to know how much we really disagree, if at all. My criterion was a sufficient rather than a necessary one. To be precise I consider current listing on a major stock exchange to be sufficient notability justification for having an article. It is not a necessary condition because other qualifying conditions are possible for accomplishing this. Your example of a failed company is an excellent one of someplace where another criterion would apply.
Ec
Christopher G. Parham wrote:
On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Ec
Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a criterion.
It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on a major exchange isn't. I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
-Mark
Some of us do. Some schools are worth discussing. My own alma mater does have its own page, but doesn't have a discussion. That's a shame. It has always had an eclictic mix of students, including the children of Brown University and Rhode Island School of Design faculty and students from the poorest sections of Providence. Among its alumni are Howard Phillips Lovecraft and Scott Hamilton (musician). In 1960, when my sister went there, there was already a heroin-using population. I'm not sure I'll be contributing to it.
When I did a stub about John Schoenherr, there were immediate links added to Stuyvesant High School, which is a good discussion. I'm not sure I have an opinion on the matter, though.
On 1/28/07, Derek Hodgson dhodg13@gmail.com wrote:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
-- Derek Hodgson
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
If we didn't fucking cares [sic], would there have been so many different people who wrote in this thread? If you don't like it, don't subscribe to Wikipedia-l. This is a real issue.
Mark
On 28/01/07, Derek Hodgson dhodg13@gmail.com wrote:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
-- Derek Hodgson
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no. I don't care about this when I'm fucking. I doubt anyone fucking does.
- -- Sean Barrett | Modern art is what happens when painters stop sean@epoptic.com | looking at girls and persuade themselves | that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi
Hey, if your partner is talking about it during the act, wouldn't you think about it?
Mark
On 28/01/07, Sean Barrett sean@epoptic.com wrote:
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no. I don't care about this when I'm fucking. I doubt anyone fucking does.
Sean Barrett | Modern art is what happens when painters stop sean@epoptic.com | looking at girls and persuade themselves | that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: GnuPG v1.4.2 (MingW32) Comment: Using GnuPG with Mozilla - http://enigmail.mozdev.org
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Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 28/01/07, Mark Williamson node.ue@gmail.com wrote:
Hey, if your partner is talking about it during the act, wouldn't you think about it?
Now, that's definitely beyond 'kinky' into 'just sick.'
- d.
Just like companies, a school can be notable for being a widely publicized failure. In the one case it may no longer be listed on a stock exchange, in the other, there may be no notable alumni.
Notability should not depend on the size or success or the nature of the community. It's a question of there being something worth writing about. There is no point in merely repeating directory information findable on the web, & if more cannot be said, there should be no article.
Of the NYC public elementary schools, 2 have articles in WP. They are both excellent schools. One of them wrote a few lines about where it is located & which school board it's in. The other has a real article. What we need is good articles, and while we accept anything in some areas, we do not encourage good articles. -DGG
Sean Barrett wrote:
Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no. I don't care about this when I'm fucking. I doubt anyone fucking does.
That's another perspective on "Eats ... shoots ... and leaves" :-)
Ec
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1
Ray Saintonge stated for the record:
Sean Barrett wrote:
Derek Hodgson stated for the record:
Does ANYONE fucking cares about this?
Well, I can't speak for others, but ... well ... no. I don't care about this when I'm fucking. I doubt anyone fucking does.
That's another perspective on "Eats ... shoots ... and leaves" :-)
Many of my sex partners have commented on that.
- -- Sean Barrett | Modern art is what happens when painters stop sean@epoptic.com | looking at girls and persuade themselves | that they have a better idea. --John Ciardi
Delirium wrote:
Christopher G. Parham wrote:
On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a criterion.
It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on a major exchange isn't. I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
While most Wikipedians have probably attended some elementary school, I sometimes can't help but feeling that there is a profound lack of understanding about the corporate world. Maybe it's just that our younger crowd has never had the occasion to figure out what the financial pages are about. Listed companies have their share prices reported on a daily basis. Objective studies are constantly being done and published by brokerage and other investment firms. Even a confirmed opponent of most corporate activities needs to "know his enemy" in oder to fight them more effectvely. I wonder whether those who support the current guidelines for corporate notability have ever bought, owned or sold any stock in their lives. The usual image of a corporation st least gives the appearance of being contrary to any kind of open access to information. We probably don't have much of a corporate lobby at all.
Ec
Ray Saintonge schreef:
Delirium wrote:
Christopher G. Parham wrote:
On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a criterion.
It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on a major exchange isn't. I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
While most Wikipedians have probably attended some elementary school, I sometimes can't help but feeling that there is a profound lack of understanding about the corporate world. Maybe it's just that our younger crowd has never had the occasion to figure out what the financial pages are about. Listed companies have their share prices reported on a daily basis. Objective studies are constantly being done and published by brokerage and other investment firms. Even a confirmed opponent of most corporate activities needs to "know his enemy" in oder to fight them more effectvely. I wonder whether those who support the current guidelines for corporate notability have ever bought, owned or sold any stock in their lives. The usual image of a corporation st least gives the appearance of being contrary to any kind of open access to information. We probably don't have much of a corporate lobby at all.
Ec
Hoi, I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages. My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company that sold pet food over the Internet...
Thanks, GerardM
On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
Delirium wrote:
Christopher G. Parham wrote:
On 1/27/2007 3:15 AM, Ray Saintonge wrote:
A reasonable criterion for companies would be the listing of its shares on an important stock exchange.
Sadly our actual "notability guideline" explicitly reject that as a criterion.
It's strange that a small elementary school is inherently notable by virtue of existing, but a corporation that's actually publicly traded on a major exchange isn't. I guess the Wikipedia school lobby has more clout than the Wikipedia corporate lobby?
While most Wikipedians have probably attended some elementary school, I sometimes can't help but feeling that there is a profound lack of understanding about the corporate world. Maybe it's just that our younger crowd has never had the occasion to figure out what the financial pages are about. Listed companies have their share prices reported on a daily basis. Objective studies are constantly being done and published by brokerage and other investment firms. Even a confirmed opponent of most corporate activities needs to "know his enemy" in oder to fight them more effectvely. I wonder whether those who support the current guidelines for corporate notability have ever bought, owned or sold any stock in their lives. The usual image of a corporation st least gives the appearance of being contrary to any kind of open access to information. We probably don't have much of a corporate lobby at all.
Ec
Hoi, I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages. My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company that sold pet food over the Internet...
I think it's reasonable to consider whether the company notability criteria are too strict, as currently written and applied.
That we should not open the floodgates to letting companies promote themselves using Wikipedia doesn't mean that we shouldn't cover more companies in a fair and neutral manner...
George Herbert wrote:
On 1/28/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Hoi,
I have bought, owned and sold stocks. I have read the financial pages. My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies that the financial pages are concentrated on. Many companies that are economically as relevant do not get the same degree of attention. When you aim to say that companies, organisations are relevant and that they are under represented I do agree with you. It is just that many of these companies, like imho almost all schools are not relevant. When people want to write about them, like with schools, people will have strong opinions about them. People of these companies will try to game the system for their marketing benefit. When there is a project with a strong community of people who nurse this content, fine.
Wikipedia is an encyclopaedia, and many companies have no lasting relevance. Some companies have anecdotal relevance like this company that sold pet food over the Internet...
I think it's reasonable to consider whether the company notability criteria are too strict, as currently written and applied.
That we should not open the floodgates to letting companies promote themselves using Wikipedia doesn't mean that we shouldn't cover more companies in a fair and neutral manner...
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
Ec
On Sunday 28 January 2007 19:42, Ray Saintonge wrote:
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke
What a dirty boy!
Perhaps you meant "dike"...
Kurt Maxwell Weber wrote:
On Sunday 28 January 2007 19:42, Ray Saintonge wrote:
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke
What a dirty boy!
Perhaps you meant "dike"...
:-D Great minds think alike.
Your point is well taken, but my New Oxford indicates that both spellings can be used for both meanings.
Ec
Ray Saintonge schreef:
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
Ec
Hoi, Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts to flow. However this will not work for long.
You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to commemorate this fictional event .. :)
Thanks, GerardM
I will admit I did not know that dykes are best plugged with a flat hand rather than a single finger... I had always thought a finger in them did the trick to prevent any seepage of fluids, but then I have no experience on the topic, and so am intrigued to learn that one should use a hand instead to keep the dyke stronger for longer.
I'm curious, is there a specific field where dykes are studied? Or is it just a subset of hydrology without its own name?
Mark
On 29/01/07, Gerard Meijssen gerard.meijssen@gmail.com wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
Ec
Hoi, Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts to flow. However this will not work for long.
You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to commemorate this fictional event .. :)
Thanks, GerardM
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My mailbox is so full already... Thanks, Elly
Hi Elly,
General mailinglist etiquette says that you should be prepared to accept all on-topic e-mails. I will admit that we have strayed a bit from the topic in this thread, but still, on Wikipedia-l, there are often discussions that result in several dozen e-mails being sent to you in the course of two or three days.
The obvious solution I would recommend is to get G-mail, but it appears you already have it. If your Gmail inbox is already full, that means you ahve a _lot_ of e-mail, and it also means it would be easy for you to simply delete this thread and other large ones like it.
Mark
On 29/01/07, Elly Waterman elly.waterman@gmail.com wrote:
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My mailbox is so full already... Thanks, Elly _______________________________________________ Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Elly Waterman wrote:
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My mailbox is so full already... Thanks, Elly
I like to try keeping my e-mails down under 200 per day, but am not always successful. Much of the chatter is admittedly unnecessary, but I enjoy the humorous diversions; they keep the mood light. Most of those postings are quite short anyway. The long ones are often the most serious ones.
Ec
Elly Waterman wrote:
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My mailbox is so full already... Thanks, Elly
If you're subscribed to high-volume mailing lists like this one you may want to try using an email program that can do filtering to automatically sort through incoming mail and put it into appropriate folders. I've used both Eudora and Thunderbird for this. I'm subscribed to three high-volume mailing lists and dozens of less active ones but between the filters I use to separate out that stuff and the spam filters built into Thunderbird I only have one or two "unclassifiable" emails left in my inbox each day (these are almost always personal emails sent directly to me by other individuals).
Many corporations (and other new editors) enter articles from which it is impossible to to realize what might make them notable. These pages are of course deleted. To what extent is it a possible function of WP to help them write a meaningful article that would a/ conform to our practices and prejudices and, b/ say something useful? Perhaps templates would be the way--for bios as well, and for schools, etc. Perhaps we need a "write a new article" interface more meaningful than the one that presently appears? DGG
On 1/29/07, Bryan Derksen bryan.derksen@shaw.ca wrote:
Elly Waterman wrote:
I admit being a very new reader of this list, so I do not know its conventions. But could you please refrain from unneccessary talking? My mailbox is so full already... Thanks, Elly
If you're subscribed to high-volume mailing lists like this one you may want to try using an email program that can do filtering to automatically sort through incoming mail and put it into appropriate folders. I've used both Eudora and Thunderbird for this. I'm subscribed to three high-volume mailing lists and dozens of less active ones but between the filters I use to separate out that stuff and the spam filters built into Thunderbird I only have one or two "unclassifiable" emails left in my inbox each day (these are almost always personal emails sent directly to me by other individuals).
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hi,
The task of eliminating particular "non-notable" topics from WP seems to me impossible. After all, for any given topic that one contributor may consider obviously notable, someone, somewhere, considers it a waste of time. (Anarchists might think all articles about politics are pointless, or something.)
What might be possible, on the other hand, would be to allow users to filter out content that they personally regard as non-notable.
So, those who think Elementary Schools are unimportant could say "filter out all changes that match *Elementary School* in the title," or "hide all articles with the category "Pokemon Cards".
(I don't know anything about the implementation details, perhaps it would be computationally too demanding. But it must be at least possible, since we can already filter out bots, minor changes, etc...)
To me, the idea of going to great efforts to *prevent* people from writing about particular topics is a waste of time better spent working on topics one is enthusiastic or knowledgeable about. Particular obsessions seems unreasonable to me; in an encyclopedia that contains 1.5 million articles, surely there are *dozens* of topics that any one particular user will find pointless?
-Pat User:Babbage
I am not sure if you were replying to me, for such was not my meaning--my meaning was that some information beyond directory information is necessary to justify an encyclopedia article--any encyclopedia article, and it might be possible to specify what counted as directory information only, thus indicating that in addition to such information, something more notable/interesting is needed.
I see this as a clarification of the generic meaning of N.-- as an alternate way of expressing it. I discuss it with schools because they seem to be the main subject of disputed criteria controversy on the en WP at the moment, but there are other subjects to which it equally applies.
I see two difficulties with this approach 1/ at the beginning of WP, the decision was deliberately taken to include certain categories of what amounts to directory information, such as the towns entered from gazetteers, or numbered roads. 2/ directory information can often be the start of a more substantial article, and it is perhaps more realistic to accept starting this way--to which I answer that most often it never does get properly expanded.
On 1/30/07, Patrick Hall <pathall @gmail.com> wrote:
Hi,
The task of eliminating particular "non-notable" topics from WP seems to me impossible. After all, for any given topic that one contributor may consider obviously notable, someone, somewhere, considers it a waste of time. (Anarchists might think all articles about politics are pointless, or something.)
What might be possible, on the other hand, would be to allow users to filter out content that they personally regard as non-notable.
So, those who think Elementary Schools are unimportant could say "filter out all changes that match *Elementary School* in the title," or "hide all articles with the category "Pokemon Cards".
(I don't know anything about the implementation details, perhaps it would be computationally too demanding. But it must be at least possible, since we can already filter out bots, minor changes, etc...)
To me, the idea of going to great efforts to *prevent* people from writing about particular topics is a waste of time better spent working on topics one is enthusiastic or knowledgeable about. Particular obsessions seems unreasonable to me; in an encyclopedia that contains 1.5 million articles, surely there are *dozens* of topics that any one particular user will find pointless?
-Pat User:Babbage
-- Reality is that which, when you stop believing in it, doesn't go away. -pkd
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Gerard Meijssen wrote:
Ray Saintonge schreef:
For now I don't think there is enough interest in companies for us to worry about the floodgates. Maybe someone should tell the little boy with his finger in the dyke that there is no water on the other side. ;-)
Contrary to popular believe, when a dyke is saturated with water and water starts to seep out, the worst thing you can do is put your finger in it. The thing to do would be to put your hand flat on where it starts to flow. However this will not work for long.
If there's no water on the other side his actions are immaterial.
You may be amused to know that because so many Americans came to the Netherlands to learn about this story, they created a statue to commemorate this fictional event .. :)
I promise that I won't destroy Dutch tourism marketting strategies by telling any Americans that the story makes no sense. ;-)
Ec
Hoi!
My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies that the financial pages are concentrated on.
Besides... in many countries the same companies do OWN the media that are publishing info about them. Not always in the open, from Italy you get accounts of a total of several hundred people sitting in ALL main national Boards. Even if the companies are legally independent from each other you can hardly expect Mr. X to attack company Y from company K, since he is sitting in company's Y Board himself...
Drawing up other people's money to pay one's CEO salary can hardly be used as a criterion for excellence. But it's hard to find one that would fit. Enron and Parmalat did look stable, didn't they? Most such monsters are certified by friends of relatives of friends... so if all you want is nice data you'll get tons of it :)
I'd say that the safer thing for an encyclopedia would be avoiding judgments altogether. Pointing users toward an article explaining what criteria are basically used by banks and agents to attract consumers' money would be far more interesting.
Everything else is 100% POV. Maybe a fortunate POV that can make you a rich man, but nevertheless it's POV. Financial reports are made to meet fiscal and marketing requirements, what sort of objectivity would you expect from a capitalistic version of the soviet Pravda? :))))
Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
Berto 'd Sera wrote:
Hoi!
My observation would be that it is exactly the publicly traded companies that the financial pages are concentrated on.
Besides... in many countries the same companies do OWN the media that are publishing info about them. Not always in the open, from Italy you get accounts of a total of several hundred people sitting in ALL main national Boards. Even if the companies are legally independent from each other you can hardly expect Mr. X to attack company Y from company K, since he is sitting in company's Y Board himself...
Interlocking Board membership is certainly worth writing about, and not just in Italy. So too are ownership patterns of subsidiaries who are themselves owned by other companies. So too are the relationships of big-name sportswear companies to third world manufacturers using low-paid child labour to produce high price goods. That whole corporate world is completely alien to believers in open economics.
Drawing up other people's money to pay one's CEO salary can hardly be used as a criterion for excellence. But it's hard to find one that would fit. Enron and Parmalat did look stable, didn't they? Most such monsters are certified by friends of relatives of friends... so if all you want is nice data you'll get tons of it :)
I'd say that the safer thing for an encyclopedia would be avoiding judgments altogether. Pointing users toward an article explaining what criteria are basically used by banks and agents to attract consumers' money would be far more interesting.
There's more to writing about companies than such POV exposés.. We also need to know which compnies are taking unfair advantage of witless investors and consumers. Having unduly rigid entry requirements for an article about a company leaves us trying to put together a jigsaw puzzle with half of the pieces missing.
Everything else is 100% POV. Maybe a fortunate POV that can make you a rich man, but nevertheless it's POV. Financial reports are made to meet fiscal and marketing requirements, what sort of objectivity would you expect from a capitalistic version of the soviet Pravda? :))))
Financial reports say what they say. Your desire to substitute your POV about companies for theirs does nothing to advance knowledge of companies. Our coverage of corporations is seriously deficient.
Ec
Hi Ray!
There's more to writing about companies than such POV exposés..
LOL, this sounds funny, as I am myself a Radical Constructivist :) I do not believe there is anything in man's mind apart from POVs... so there is also nothing that can be written, apart from POVs. The very idea of the existence of NPOV things is absolutely POV. :)
Anyway, we have is a procedure called "consensus". If I wanted to candidate my POV for consensus I would not write it here. I'd click on a big number of Edit tabs and make it happen, which is not what I'm doing. Not that I'm not interested in being a winner, simply I do not give a damn about what gets published about company X, since I sold all my stocks many years ago and never got robbed again :))) I'd rather write about what can be of use for my beloved self, as anybody else.
Our coverage of corporations is seriously deficient.
So click on those "edit" tabs and make it better People write about what is interesting to them. What you say basically means that wikimedians aren't interested in corporate economy enough for them to write about it...
Bèrto d Sèra Personagi dlann 2006 për larvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
Hi!
I'm using the RSS feeds to quote wikies' stuff in Drupal based sites. Anyway, just a list of new articles is often not very interesting, as many of them are but sad looking stubs. Is there any special page giving a list of "most modified" pages? It would extract the real meat, especially from small editions.
A question about wikidata, too (BTW, is this the right plave to make a question about it?). How can I extract a "per language" feed from OmegaWiki? And how can I avoid having those long type declarations showing in the feed? I get something like expression:word, I'd need only "word".
Thanks Bèrto d Sèra Personagi dlann 2006 për larvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
On 1/29/07, Berto 'd Sera albertoserra@ukr.net wrote:
Is there any special page giving a list of "most modified" pages?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Mostrevisions
You can find a list of similar special pages at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Specialpages but they don't have RSS feeds yet.
A question about wikidata, too (BTW, is this the right plave to make a question about it?). How can I extract a "per language" feed from OmegaWiki?
This isn't the right place. I don't know if OmegaWiki has a new mailing list. They used to use http://groups.google.com/group/uw-creations when OmegaWiki was called Ultimate Wiktionary. You could try leaving a message on the wiki at http://www.omegawiki.org/Meta:International_Beer_Parlour
Angela
Hi Angela!
You can find a list of similar special pages at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Specialpages but they don't have RSS feeds yet.
To make an RSS feed useful you'd need something like "most revised this week" (even better, today). The page you quote would only push readers into a massive "see what you can do with G.Bush jr.'s page" edit-in... I quite doubt that the en.wiki admins would welcome that :)))
I'd really like feeds made to attract traffic to specific sections. People can subscribe to them, and if communities may have some tools to (say) promote a category or another... then you can use them to direct traffic/resources to your weak spots.
This is especially strategic for small communities. Can't think of many sources offering a RSS in (say) Normand, so any site needing such feeds would not have an alternative left. It's a pretty monopolistic situation.
Should there be concerns about server overloading, I suppose we could have this stuff served from the download servers. Any idea?
Berto 'd Sera Personagi dl'ann 2006 per l'arvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojaotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
Berto 'd Sera wrote:
There's more to writing about companies than such POV exposés..
LOL, this sounds funny, as I am myself a Radical Constructivist :) I do not believe there is anything in man's mind apart from POVs... so there is also nothing that can be written, apart from POVs. The very idea of the existence of NPOV things is absolutely POV. :)
Your premise is true enough. NPOV represents a consensus of the differing POVs that have been offered to the article. Ideally each edit brings us closer to NPOV, but only rarely can it be completely achieved.
Anyway, we have is a procedure called "consensus". If I wanted to candidate my POV for consensus I would not write it here. I'd click on a big number of Edit tabs and make it happen, which is not what I'm doing. Not that I'm not interested in being a winner, simply I do not give a damn about what gets published about company X, since I sold all my stocks many years ago and never got robbed again :))) I'd rather write about what can be of use for my beloved self, as anybody else.
Isn't that what we all do?
Our coverage of corporations is seriously deficient.
So click on those "edit" tabs and make it better People write about what is interesting to them. What you say basically means that wikimedians aren't interested in corporate economy enough for them to write about it...
The point that I was making there was that applying restrictions to what makes a corporation notable is meaningless when there is no movement to add this stuff in the first place.
Ec
Hoi!
Isn't that what we all do?
Yeap :)
The point that I was making there was that applying restrictions to what makes a corporation notable is meaningless when there is no movement to add this stuff in the first place.
I agree. I'd avoid restrictions in general, as they usually only make the forbidden behavior more desirable that it used to be. Too bad that restricting restrictions has the very same effect, so one must avoid that, too :)
It's different if we speak about guidelines on what to look for when writing about Company X. A sort of basic template that would suggest by its very shape (yeah, the medium IS the message) what one needs to start with.
Once you told a guy what he should look for (kinda helpful for newbies, isn't it?), you already 70% succeeded in brainwashing him into believing that your POV is actually "the holy truth". LOLOLOLOL Governments and parents call this Houdini trick "education" :))
That's why it's SOOO interesting to discuss what info is needed and what is not. Containers shape whatever they hold... thought containers shape reality :)) Companies do not worry me, our own corporate policies do...
Bèrto d Sèra Personagi dlann 2006 për larvista american-a Time (tanme tuti vojàotri) http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1569514,00.html
On 1/25/07, David Monniaux David.Monniaux@free.fr wrote:
- to lack perspective
** give name of personnel who are private persons, which is unencyclopedic (ex: there's a teacher called foobar) ** devote inordinate length to individual, non notable incidents (exemple: some incident because of drunk students at a party 2 years ago)
- to be a magnet for vandalism, from disgruntled or bored students
** this vandalism can give details about the personal life of some minors ** it often also is demeaning ** and sometimes contains outright libel (accusing teachers or principals of being pedophiles etc.)
Half of me says 'just delete'. The other half says, 'So... protect them from anonymous/newly created accounts? I know its far from the traditional use of the tag, but if it really is that rampant the method should be tried.'
-S
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