It was suggested to me that they be moved to another domain, and if there's consensus for that, I'd gladly host them on that domain. Either something like 911tribute.wikipedia.com or www.whatever.com, which I would gladly buy. Even so, I'd like to keep as much as we can, if it can be made NPOV.
Since you asked for references to specific pages, I went looking, and I'm now more ambivalent. I think what people have a problem with is pages like "William M. Feehan", which is just effusive praise and tearful reminiscence. But then there are also pages like "Brady Howell", which is a perfectly ordinary biography that I'd have no problem with at all.
I'm already on record that I support allowing biographies of anyone at all in Wikipedia, with no regard to whether their accomplishments or fame would merit their inclusion in a more traditional reference. As long as we take care with namespace issues, and those biographies are not mere self-aggrandizement, I have no problem with including any anyone cares to write--including those about 9/11 victims. But I also think that some people used these pages not for "biography" but for "eulogy", and that's not appropriate here.
I have nothing against eulogy--I created http://www.piclab.com/sasha for a friend of mine, for example-- and I would like to see a biography of him here as well. But I wouldn't put the memorial comments from my site into the article.
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
Since you asked for references to specific pages, I went looking, and I'm now more ambivalent. I think what people have a problem with is pages like "William M. Feehan", which is just effusive praise and tearful reminiscence.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/William_M._Feehan
You're description is accurate, but he's a famous enough person that gathering a real bio ought to be easy enough.
But then there are also pages like "Brady Howell", which is a perfectly ordinary biography that I'd have no problem with at all.
http://www.wikipedia.com/wiki/Brady_Howell
I'm already on record that I support allowing biographies of anyone at all in Wikipedia, with no regard to whether their accomplishments or fame would merit their inclusion in a more traditional reference.
I agree, except that I can see some problems with disambiguation and namespace. Howell, for example, sounds like a wonderful person, but part of what makes his story poignant is that he was just a regular joe like any of us.
But I also think that some people used these pages not for "biography" but for "eulogy", and that's not appropriate here.
Seems easily fixable, if a bit "touchy".
Let's take an example sentence from the article you liked, Howell... "He worked with newspaper carriers in Smithfield and Hyde Park, who still remember him as a caring and fun-loving supervisor." This is a bit hagiographic, but presumably true, and deleting it seems pretty pointless, without any information or indication or suggestion that it might not be NPOV.
I have nothing against eulogy--I created http://www.piclab.com/sasha for a friend of mine, for example-- and I would like to see a biography of him here as well. But I wouldn't put the memorial comments from my site into the article.
Right.
Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
I'm already on record that I support allowing biographies of anyone at all in Wikipedia, with no regard to whether their accomplishments or fame would merit their inclusion in a more traditional reference.
I agree, except that I can see some problems with disambiguation and namespace.
I disagree, for several reasons.
First, I see an encyclopedia as a compendium of all human knowledge that is interesting or useful to a significant number of people. My dream last night, and the fact that I keep my notebook in the right drawer of my desk, are both stored in my brain, so they are part of human knowledge. They are interesting/useful to me, but not to anyone else, therefore they don't belong in an encyclopedia. A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
Second, facts about unimportant people are not checkable. I could write that my father once fell from a horse, and no one could ever disprove this false claim. If an important person falls from a horse, it leaves a trail.
Third, and related, it is impossible to write a biography of an unimportant person from a NPOV, since essentially only the very partial point of view of the immediate family and friends exists.
Axel
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--- Axel Boldt axelboldt@yahoo.com wrote:
lcrocker@nupedia.com wrote:
I'm already on record that I support allowing
biographies of anyone
at all in Wikipedia, with no regard to whether
their accomplishments
or fame would merit their inclusion in a more
traditional reference.
I agree, except that I can see some problems with
disambiguation and
namespace.
I disagree, for several reasons.
First, I see an encyclopedia as a compendium of all human knowledge that is interesting or useful to a significant number of people. My dream last night, and the fact that I keep my notebook in the right drawer of my desk, are both stored in my brain, so they are part of human knowledge. They are interesting/useful to me, but not to anyone else, therefore they don't belong in an encyclopedia. A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
Second, facts about unimportant people are not checkable. I could write that my father once fell from a horse, and no one could ever disprove this false claim. If an important person falls from a horse, it leaves a trail.
Third, and related, it is impossible to write a biography of an unimportant person from a NPOV, since essentially only the very partial point of view of the immediate family and friends exists.
I'm with Axel. I think a project with the goal of world-wide biographies could be interesting, but Wikipedia is not such a project.
Stephen
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At 09:07 PM 25/09/02 -0700, Stephen Gilbert wrote:
I'm with Axel. I think a project with the goal of world-wide biographies could be interesting, but Wikipedia is not such a project.
I also agree. One of the first things I did when the new Wiki software came along with its lovely User: subspace was to delete my old "home article" completely; I don't belong in an encyclopedia, I'm nobody important (yet :). Yes, Wikipedia has effectively unlimited space, but even so there are things which aren't IMO appropriate for inclusion in an encyclopedia no matter how big it is. They distract rather than inform. Encyclopedias are an overview of human knowledge, not the sum total of it; that's what the _rest_ of the library is for.
Bryan Derksen wrote:
I also agree. One of the first things I did when the new Wiki software came along with its lovely User: subspace was to delete my old "home article" completely; I don't belong in an encyclopedia, I'm nobody important (yet :).
Neither am I, and I wouldn't want an article about me in the Encyclopedia now. But after I die (don't worry, that's at least 200 years from now I hope!) everyone better write long glowing memoriams to me, NPOV be damned! ;-)
As I say, I'm sympathetic to this viewpoint (and to the opposite viewpoint!) but the biggest problem I see is that there's no particular way to draw the line.
I would say that it's not a problem -- no one would bother writing detailed articles about random people who are not the least bit famous. But someone surely will, if for no other reason than to annoy us.
--Jimbo
Axel Boldt wrote:
First, I see an encyclopedia as a compendium of all human knowledge that is interesting or useful to a significant number of people. My dream last night, and the fact that I keep my notebook in the right drawer of my desk, are both stored in my brain, so they are part of human knowledge. They are interesting/useful to me, but not to anyone else, therefore they don't belong in an encyclopedia. A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
I am sympathetic to this idea, though not wholly convinced that it would be a good idea to try to formulate policy around it. Where do we stop, and why?
How about the mayor of New York City? Famous enough. How about the mayor of Atlanta, Georgia? Probably. Mayor of Juneau, Alaska? How about the city councilpersons?
It seems that virtually every college town (all the ones that I lived in) has _the_ local semi-professional permanent activist/student. These folks are always making the news locally. Why not an article about them?
It just seems very hard to me to be able to draw any particular line. Many professors are well-known and important _in their field_, but completely unknown otherwise. Most authors are unknowns, but some are not.
Second, facts about unimportant people are not checkable. I could write that my father once fell from a horse, and no one could ever disprove this false claim. If an important person falls from a horse, it leaves a trail.
Third, and related, it is impossible to write a biography of an unimportant person from a NPOV, since essentially only the very partial point of view of the immediate family and friends exists.
That's probably mostly true, but then again, if an article just sticks to the basic facts, it should be fine.
My grandmother is not a famous person. Yet, she founded a private school that existed for many years and had a great impact on many people in her community. If you were writing a history of that community, then if it was sufficiently detailed enough, you'd want to include her story.
--Jimbo
--- Jimmy Wales jwales@bomis.com wrote:
Axel Boldt wrote:
First, I see an encyclopedia as a compendium of all human knowledge that is interesting or useful to a significant number of people. My dream last night, and the fact that I keep my notebook in the right drawer of my desk, are both stored in my brain, so they are part of human knowledge. They are interesting/useful to me, but not to anyone else, therefore they don't belong in an encyclopedia. A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
I am sympathetic to this idea, though not wholly convinced that it would be a good idea to try to formulate policy around it. Where do we stop, and why?
I don't see a need to formulate any policy. It's all implicit in the overall goal of writing an encyclopedia, properly understood. Certain things are simply not contained in encyclopedias, period.
Axel
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On 25 Sep 2002, at 19:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
How do you measure the importance of someone ?
Imran
--- Imran Ghory ImranG@btinternet.com wrote:
On 25 Sep 2002, at 19:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
How do you measure the importance of someone ?
Like I just did: a person is unimportant if his or her biography is interesting/useful to almost no one.
Axel
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On Thu, 2002-09-26 at 16:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
--- Imran Ghory ImranG@btinternet.com wrote:
On 25 Sep 2002, at 19:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
How do you measure the importance of someone ?
Like I just did: a person is unimportant if his or her biography is interesting/useful to almost no one.
What's your quantifiable metrics of "interesting", "useful", and "almost no one"?
--- The Cunctator cunctator@kband.com wrote:
What's your quantifiable metrics of "interesting", "useful", and "almost no one"?
Did I say I have or need one?
Axel
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Axel Boldt wrote:
What's your quantifiable metrics of "interesting", "useful", and "almost no one"?
Did I say I have or need one?
I actually tend to agree with Axel here. I think it would be difficult to specify a quantifiable metric, but I also think that this doesn't preclude us from acknowledging the general point.
For the 9/11 victims, if someone were to challenge an entry by saying "Who is this person? Why is this person's biography interesting or useful? Who cares?" then there's an answer: "This person is one of many _otherwise_ ordinary people who was a victim of an event of first-rank historical importance. Part of what makes his story interesting is precisely that he was so uninteresting (from a encyclopedic perspective, not, obviously to his friends and loved ones) before."
I do think that if someone starts writing dozens of biographies of random people who are not of any encyclopedic importance, not even tangentially as in the present case, we'll have to worry about how to deal with it.
But this is surely just a specific example of a more general problem we will face eventually, i.e. as all of the 'important' topics are covered, we will find that people are more and more writing on 'unimportant' topics, moving from the histories of big cities to the histories of small towns to the histories of each particular anonymous bland subdivision, to the history of Del Boca Vista West Phase III.
It'll be pretty exciting if we get to the point where the only things left to do are have ideological fights over existing articles on controversial subjects, add articles on new inventions, and add articles on useless topics. At that time, I think a significant proportion of volunteer energy will turn naturally towards "packaging" the raw content for various purposes. (For example, a paper version would have space constraints which would demand that we leave things out that are in the raw version.)
--Jimbo
The Cunctator wrote:
Axel Boldt wrote:
Imran Ghory wrote:
How do you measure the importance of someone ?
Like I just did: a person is unimportant if his or her biography is interesting/useful to almost no one.
What's your quantifiable metrics of "interesting", "useful", and "almost no one"?
Not that we could ever measure this in practice with any precision, but for a definition that we could officially attempt to estimate: Ask each person to rank, on a percentage scale, to what degree they find the biography interesting and useful. Average these, and you have a percentage measure of importance.
I'd say that we should try to stick to important people now, gradually adding the less important as we grow to insane size; this is what I think that we should do in *every* field. We cover the basics first; we eventually cover everything.
-- Toby
On 9/27/02 1:01 AM, "Toby Bartels" toby+wikipedia@math.ucr.edu wrote:
I'd say that we should try to stick to important people now, gradually adding the less important as we grow to insane size; this is what I think that we should do in *every* field. We cover the basics first; we eventually cover everything.
As long as you let others have different strategies, then that's great.
I say that each individual should do what they enjoy and are good at doing; if someone wants to focus on one topic, and make it incredibly precise and comprehensive, then I think that person should do that.
It's important to recognize that we have the law of large numbers on our side; we can have individual goals that are not identical to collective goals.
The Cunctator wrote:
Toby Bartels wrote:
I'd say that we should try to stick to important people now, gradually adding the less important as we grow to insane size; this is what I think that we should do in *every* field. We cover the basics first; we eventually cover everything.
As long as you let others have different strategies, then that's great.
Certainly I do, grudgingly though I may do it ^_^. I will argue against including biographies of every 9/11 victim, but I won't argue for removing them Wikipedia (as opposed to removing the eulogies, but that's an NPOV issue of course).
I say that each individual should do what they enjoy and are good at doing; if someone wants to focus on one topic, and make it incredibly precise and comprehensive, then I think that person should do that.
Yes, and I myself am doing that with certain math articles. I do think (as advice, not as anything that should be enforced) that within this topic, the individual shoul start with the basics.
It's important to recognize that we have the law of large numbers on our side; we can have individual goals that are not identical to collective goals.
This is true; while I'm doing many other things on the side here, the reason that I joined was the opportunity that I saw to write a comprehensive mathematics encyclopaedia. That this is incorporated within a general encyclopaedia, allowing for cross references to nonmathematical topics, is a bonus.
-- Toby
On 26 Sep 2002, at 13:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
--- Imran Ghory ImranG@btinternet.com wrote:
On 25 Sep 2002, at 19:53, Axel Boldt wrote:
A biography of an unimportant person is interesting/useful to almost no one, therefore it doesn't belong either.
How do you measure the importance of someone ?
Like I just did: a person is unimportant if his or her biography is interesting/useful to almost no one.
What is "almost no one", one, two, ten, a hundred people ?
Should we get rid of any articles which get less than X hits a year as they're "interesting/useful to almost no one" ?
Imran
Axel Boldt wrote:
Like I just did: a person is unimportant if his or her biography is interesting/useful to almost no one.
If a contributor finds it worth the while to write a bio on a person, then that person is apparently interesting to that contributor.
I thought that Wikipedia would be self-regulatory in this liberal manner, but the flood of messages on this list in the last month has focused on what should *not* be in the Wikipedia (stubs etc.). I think this is sad and destructive. I wanted the liberal approach, where anybody could write what they liked as long as Jimmy could afford the disk space. Wikipedia is a radically new approach to creating a useful knowledge resource, but everybody seems to be fully occupied with reaching some obsolete 19th century ideals of what an encyclopedia should be. I wouldn't be surprised if next week somebody suggests that Wikipedia articles should be arranged in alphabetic order (yet another obsolete notion). I think putting "pedia" in the name was a mistake. This could be the Memex or project Xanadu or your own Interpedia, which should be so much more than an old printed encyclopedia. Wikipedia should not be compared to Britannica. We should aim for 100 million articles, not 100 thousand.
Some new ideas that are coming out of the deletion discussion are really useful, such as deleting a single version of an article rather than the entire article.
However, I don't want to be the one to just complain. I run my own wiki in Swedish, completely liberal, without the pedia ambition and without "pedia" in the name. Now in its 11th month of existence, it has become the world's 3rd biggest wiki after the English Wikipedia and Ward Cunningham's c2.com, with 10,000 articles (comma count) out of 16,000 pages. In August it had 112 logged-in active contributors to 11,000 edits (minor and major). Page deletion is not allowed, and nobody urges me to implement it. Edit wars are under control. It gets media attention and everybody thinks it is fun, relaxed, and not overly serious. I've had no problems with copyright violations, which is probably explained by the fact that file uploads are not allowed. I have no mailing list, so discussion about policies and software are kept to a minimum, and everybody can focus on writing articles.
Mine might be the world's 3rd biggest wiki, but my other website is ten times larger, with 100,000 web pages full of Nordic literature, and ten times older, since it started in December 1992. Still, that is a small hobby website with only 300 electronic books, only 100 of which in facsimile, when compared to the big American "digital library" websites. We're only seeing the beginning yet. This should not be the time to discuss how to reduce the amount of contents.
Just a point-by-point reply.
On Fri, 27 Sep 2002, Lars Aronsson wrote:
I thought that Wikipedia would be self-regulatory in this liberal manner, ^^^^^^^
I think this is a misuse of the word. "Liberal" yes; "anarchical" no. The *mere* having of standards does not *in itself* militate against having a maximally liberal project.
but the flood of messages on this list in the last month has focused on what should *not* be in the Wikipedia (stubs etc.). I think this is sad and destructive.
I respectfully disagree. Wikipedia has succeeded as well as it has, and Susning has arguably benefitted indirectly thereby, by carefully defining what it is--and what it ain't.
I wanted the liberal approach, where anybody could write what they liked as long as Jimmy could afford the disk space.
As Jimbo never tires of telling people, this is true: if you want to write a wiki about such-and-such, by golly he'll set it up for you. But if you want to participate in Wikipedia, pitch in and help support the basic standards that at least define the project *as* an encyclopedia.
Wikipedia is a radically new approach to creating a useful knowledge
^^^^^^^^^ Radical in the sense of being radically collaborative and democratic; not necessarily radical in the sense of being anarchical. That's an important difference.
occupied with reaching some obsolete 19th century ideals of what an encyclopedia should be. ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Since there are hundreds, or thousands, of very fully 21st-century people pursuing and supporting this project, calling the basic defining characteristics of our project (well, that's what it sounds like you're saying) "19th-century" and "obsolete" is a little odd.
This could be the Memex or project Xanadu or your own Interpedia, which should be so much more than an old printed encyclopedia. Wikipedia should not be compared to Britannica. We should aim for 100 million articles, not 100 thousand.
Yes! Who could disagree with that?
[...] We're only seeing the beginning yet. This should not be the time to discuss how to reduce the amount of contents.
I personally agree with this in spirit. After all, who couldn't be all for the rapid expansion of the availability of all sorts of information online? (OK, other than certain governments.)
We can agree strongly with this while grudgingly admitting that at times, in order to keep a certain well-defined project on course, we've got to trim a little fat. *Very* little.
======
As to the issue at hand, I'm in Axel's camp, though I could be convinced otherwise. At *present*, most people are not appropriate subjects for encyclopedia articles. The vast majority of people live out their lives impacting only their immediate family, friends, and workmates. Admittedly, quite obviously they are very important people to those around them. Admittedly, in the large scheme of things it is quite arguable that distinguished politicians, scientists, etc., are no more important than any of the rest of us.
We can admit that and still maintain that the scope for encyclopedia biographies should not be expanded to include biographies of every person on Earth. That's not to deny that that would be an interesting project worth some consideration. But it's not *our* project--which is to say, expanding the scope of possible biographies to include everyone's implies that we'd be engaged in a completely different project than the one we are now engaged in, one that is not even very much like our project.
I also agree with Axel that where the line should be drawn is not one that we need to work out right now, if we ever do.
One last point: as Wikipedia expands, I can see the line being pushed in the direction of admitting greater and greater obscurity. Suppose, for example--what, admittedly, is pretty absurd, but it's not unimaginable --that Wikipedia becomes *the* central reference work for the entire world, such that everybody who's anybody and many bodies who are nobody is working on it, improving it, etc. In such a case, I can imagine that everyone who wanted one could have an entry about him- or herself; in that case, the notion of a universal biographical database would be feasible.
We aren't quite to that point yet, however.
Larry
Lars Aronsson wrote:
I thought that Wikipedia would be self-regulatory in this liberal manner, but the flood of messages on this list in the last month has focused on what should *not* be in the Wikipedia (stubs etc.). I think this is sad and destructive. I wanted the liberal approach, where anybody could write what they liked as long as Jimmy could afford the disk space.
Do you doubt that Wikipedia will end up like this? I do not. For myself, I only want to control the growth, keep it centred. Those that would keep Wikipedia forever within traditional bounds are doomed to failure in the end. Yet Wikipedia is still small, and in that respect still like the Encyclopaedia Britannica, and we can learn from them how to keep such a small reference work focused and balanced. By 2005, we will be far beyond this, however.
-- Toby
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