Ulrich Fuchs
I do not beleive that this is a very good idea. You can do this, of course, the GNU FDL allows it. However, I feel like Wikipedia should be cannibalized that way, sorry.
How would it be cannibalized? We are talking about creating a stable version of the articles. Most people, for example, don't install and use software in a production environment that is from CVS. Most people wait for a stable release of the software. Wikipedia is in a constant state of change - it is like CVS. Nupedia would be a stable distribution of that content that has been checked by experts.
I agree that stable and accepted articles are important to have (for quoting and so on). I do not agree that defining those versions must be done by "people with baccalaureate degrees in the subject area". It would be far more important to get these experts *Writing* instead of editing.
They already are. I have a baccalaureate degree in biology but that doesn't mean I'm staking my reputation on anything I write in the biology section as 'maveric149.' But if I am checking facts in a biology article submitted to Nupedia I /will/ be staking my reputation on the factual accuracy of the article. As an added bonus Wikipedia gets an article whose facts have been checked by somebody who should know what they are talking about. There is no such stamp of approval on Wikipedia articles now.
I am not in favour of a system where a lot of people drive thousands of articles to a certain (excellent) state, and a few experts get the merits by selecting the articels, making some smaller copyedits and then calling that the "real" encyclopaedia, implicitly stating that the Wikipedia is not serious at all.
Having a "checked by" attrib is hardly giving all the credit to the Nupedian. The complete article history will also be linked from the static, checked version on Nupedia. And Wikipedia is the content development area - that is a serious and very important thing. Without it there would be no content.
So people will have a choice between the stable version which has been checked by verified people with credentials or the more up to date version which may have glaring errors or omissions or outright false information inputed a second before they view the page.
I'm the type of person who likes to use stable distributions.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
Having a "checked by" attrib is hardly giving all the credit to the Nupedian. The complete article history will also be linked from the static, checked version on Nupedia. And Wikipedia is the content development area -
We are not talking about a "checked by" for a stable version within Wikipedia, we are talking about seperate articles (e.g. in the domain www.nupedia.org) that were taken out of the Wikipedia, copyedited and then placed under a new label.
I agree that accuracy is the most important thing for an encyclopaedia. However, Wikipedia is out there to prove that an encylopaedia (sic!) can be build without a formalized process and without a formalized experts "editing commitee". Do I understand it right, that you declare this attempt to be failed right now?
Uli
And Wikipedia is the content development area - that is a serious and very important thing. Without it there would be no content.
With an "official" cannibalization of Wikipedia arcticles for Nupedia articles there would be no content - people do not like it to write without being acknowledged. They get this acknowledment right now by supporting the free encyclopedia idea *directly*. I bet most of the contributors will have a very bad feeling about not doing the "final" thing any more, but being just the idiots who do all the work for some guys and girls at Nupedia who will be the "gods" which - at the end of the day - decide rather authorically what is good content and what is nonsens.
If you want the Wikipedia volunteers to keep volunteering, you must keep the "stable" versions under the Wikipedia label.
I say stable, not "approved". There could be a formalized, but still open process for building "stable" versions. You can start with an excellent article, put it into a sperate namespace or whatever, and than apply an important copyediting rule to it: "No new content may be added here, but content may be deleted". There are clever editors without degrees in the particular area that can do copyediting by throwing out everything that doesn't sound reasonable to them. Editors with a degree in the area are free to join in, of course and prevent the stable article from having wrong content by simply throwing it out! One can use the discussion pages for dabating which sentences will be thrown out and so on. If no new content may be added, there is a guarantee that this process will not work the same way like normal editing, where a lot of "arguing" takes place in the articles. If no new argument may be added, the article will shrink to the undisputed facts and gain quality.
After some time of copyediting there would be a freeze for the article and a vote, if it's ok to be declared "stable". Such a stable version could be merged back to the in-process-article, all the arguing there takes place again, and the cycle restarts.
Uli
MAV penned (condensed): ""We are talking about creating a stable version of the articles.Nupedia
would be a stable distribution of that content that has been checked by experts.....I have a baccalaureate degree in biology but that doesn't mean I'm staking my reputation on anything I write in the biology section as 'maveric149.' But if I am checking facts in a biology article submitted to Nupedia I /will/ be staking my reputation on the factual accuracy of the article. ....As an added bonus Wikipedia gets an article whose facts have been checked by somebody who should know what they are talking about. There is no such stamp of approval on Wikipedia
articles now. ...I'm the type of person who likes to use stable distributions. """
POINT BY POINT REFUTATION:
1. Stable version is a euphemism for "selected for quality" a brilliantly disguised elitism that, if seen for what it is -- leads to a direct conflict with FDL.
2. Quote: "MY reputation" - so its about YE, now is it Mr. Maverick?) 3. It may be, Mav -- that if you were concerned with "stable distributions" and 'staked reputations' that YOU may have been "involved with the wrong project" from the get-go.
Wink, wink. -S-
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
My take on this whole issue is that there *will* be a stable version of Wikipedia, because there is demand for such a thing. When my mom reads articles, she doesn't want them to sometimes be in the middle of an edit war, or sometimes have been vandalized, and so on. As Wikipedia currently is, on average it has great information, but at any given time, any given article could be completely crap, even if it was great 10 minutes ago. Sure, those of us who know what we're doing can look through the edit history and pull out a good version, but most people aren't going to want to or know how to do this.
So basically I think if we don't do it ourselves, somebody else will start sifting out "good articles" from Wikipedia. I think we can do a better job of it though, and keep the results under the Wikipedia name.
I also don't really see what the worries with elitism and especially with the FDL are. I see this exactly as most open source software development -- you have a CVS branch that can be updated at any time, and periodic releases of "known good" versions. The attributions and such are of course not going to be removed (I wouldn't think).
I think perhaps some of the problem might be that people are advocating (or think other are advocating) a more formalized process along the lines of Nupedia. I don't think that would be a good idea -- choosing "known good" versions of articles should IMO by done by consensus, and we shouldn't require any formal credentials to do so (though hopefully people with such credentials will be among the people who make comments in the attempt to reach a consensus). But I do think some process by which a particular version of an article can be nominated as good, and then added to the "good" distribution if there are no objections, is a good idea.
This could all be done on the Wiki, but if the stable distribution is to be anything but a tiny subset of Wikipedia, I think some more software would be necessary. Some automated method by which the software keeps track of submissions and comments would be helpful. One possible method -- anyone can nominate a particular version of an article, and anyone can post replies to the nomination that are tagged either "support" or "oppose" (or "neutral"). Any nomination with no "oppose" comments within some certain period of time is automatically added to the stable version; the ones with opposing comments are dealt with more manually in the usual wiki way, added if it's been determined a consensus has been reached, or the nomination withdrawn if a consensus against is reached.
Of course this all requires someone with time and interest in coding up some more software. But I think that's necessary -- the "Brillian Prose" manual method doesn't really scale well, and will never I don't think end up successfully scaling up to, say, keeping track of 25,000 articles.
-Mark
Delirium-
This could all be done on the Wiki, but if the stable distribution is to be anything but a tiny subset of Wikipedia, I think some more software would be necessary. Some automated method by which the software keeps track of submissions and comments would be helpful. One possible method -- anyone can nominate a particular version of an article, and anyone can post replies to the nomination that are tagged either "support" or "oppose" (or "neutral"). Any nomination with no "oppose" comments within some certain period of time is automatically added to the stable version; the ones with opposing comments are dealt with more manually in the usual wiki way, added if it's been determined a consensus has been reached, or the nomination withdrawn if a consensus against is reached.
It is hard to say whether such an addition would actually simplify things, since every new interface is a new barrier to entry. On the other hand, if it would make things easier, it should be part of the standard Wikipedia software, because it would be useful for semi-automating other Wiki processes as well -- "Votes for deletion", "Requests for adminship" etc. If "Brilliant prose" does not scale as a selection mechanism, then "Votes for deletion" does not scale as a deletion mechanism -- the two are virtually identical in terms of process.
It is harder to find solutions that are well integrated into our existing wiki framework than to start a separate project, but the potential benefits are far greater, especially because there will inevitably by <marketing>synergy effects</marketing> for the project as a whole.
Regards,
Erik
After all my bad-talk about Wikiphilosophy being violated -- Im in agreement with Erik that different ways of looking at wikipedia more dynamically, more focused, more intuitively -- like an intelligent category scheme, etc. Im not opposed to.
But I like to boil things down to the essentials -- A category scheme, in addition to doing most of that other stuff, should also not be limited to a particular *language, rather be a way of giving dynamic content from the whole of WP content, based on wholistic databasing approach. -- i.e language as simply a factor of a page, rather than a separate web location. There could be a universal numbering system for categories that is different only by the language its targeting. ---
Kinda getting into Ebay territory there, but hey -- as far as Wiki goes -- Wikipedia is the Ebay of Wikis. Gadzooks! you say? I understand these different efforts are underway -- I just not sure if the language issue is being considered as much as I (me) would like it to be.
-S-
__________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com
Delirium wrote:
So basically I think if we don't do it ourselves, somebody else will start sifting out "good articles" from Wikipedia. I think we can do a better job of it though, and keep the results under the Wikipedia name.
No matter who does it, the resulting collection needs not only be even in quality, but also well balanced. It cannot be detailed on physics and lack classic music. (Unless it is an "encyclopedia of physics".)
I doubt that this will be achievable in the near time. You are free to prove me wrong, of course.
If thinking about this goal can lead to the identification of areas where Wikipedia today lacks detail, that can be good enough, even if the goal in itself isn't reached.
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org