1. Sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Sinosphere (for example) are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere. 2. Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
On 8/10/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
- Sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Sinosphere (for example)
are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere.
As someone who is a part of a culture which is not so good covered on Internet (Serbian), I think that I am completely relevant to talk about this issue.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Yes, it is much more then just an encyclopedia, but it is primary encyclopedia.
* Encyclopedia follows scientific method, not religious, not political. *
One of the basic principles of science is to say that it may describe something and that it is not possible to describe something else. *Not possible* may mean that it is not possible to do it temporary, but it also may mean that it is not possible to do at all.
It is completely according to the scientific method not to describe something if it is not possible and it is completely *against* scientific method to describe something without relevant background.
This implies a couple of things:
- One scientific project shouldn't add anything without relevant background. (In the case of encyclopedia, it means without references.)
- Users from small culture and/or not so well presented cultures on the Internet should be encouraged to make their culture's sources accessible.
- All Wikipedias will be affected by systematic bias at the beginning and if we are working well systematic bias will be lesser as time is passing.
* Sources are the root layer of any encyclopedia. *
Encyclopedia doesn't "think", it cites what do other think. There are no such things like "well known truths" for encyclopedia.
Unsourced sentences like "Queen Victoria was born in London" (well known truth for one person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) leads to sentences like "Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana" (not so well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) and "Josib Broz was born in Kumrovec" (not well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere). (I may make an elaborate that we are making general encyclopedia in 200 language editions, not encyclopedias of particular cultures in their languages; I may also elaborate about examples which I chose ... Plus, it is completely unscientific to say that something is "well known" and something is not except you have a very complex research about what are "well known truths" in different parts of the world.)
So, the only valid method is to have sources for all of them. And we have to fight against systematic bias, but we shouldn't make Wikipedia unscientific in such fight.
- Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream
encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
I think that we need one method for all sources. If it is needed to go down because of non-academic topics, then it should. However, it seems that I am not so introduced in differences in approaches. May you give some example?
Milos Rancic wrote:
- Encyclopedia follows scientific method, not religious, not political. *
Put this way, your statement sounds far more like a religious dogma than a scientifically established truth.
Let's apply the scientific method: I propose an alternative truth, and we'll see if you can prove me wrong. I suggest that "scientific" is a word used in the *marketing* of traditional encyclopedias, that has little or no real meaning for the actual contents. The term is used because it has prevailed in marketing. If two competing encyclopedias were equal (do we have any examples?) except for the use of the word "scientific", the one that used "scientific" in its self-description would sell better. In many cases, that an encyclopedia describes it self as "scientific" often means nothing more than people employed in science (well-known professors) have contributed articles.
In fact, "compiled by prominent scholars" is an even stronger marketing term than "scientific" for an encyclopedia. This is "the authoritarian trick" that Citizendium tries to pull on Wikipedia. It would be interesting to know what effect that difference in marketing would have if the contents were comparable.
But the contents of CZ and WP are not comparable. Wikipedia wins in comprehensiveness. And this is "the size trick" of encyclopedia marketing, as in "20 volumes must be better than 10". Just look at the Spanish "Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana" (70 volumes, 1908-1930). If the size trick was useless, this venture would go bancrupt, but they didn't and they were able to output a 10 volume appendix in 1930-1933. Apparently they were very successful. But just how scientific were they?
The fact that so much discussion within Wikipedia now focuses on verifyability and being scientific, is only explained by the fact that raw size has already been taken care of. (The Spanish Enciclopedia universal was 165 million words, a size that the English Wikipedia database passed in March 2005.) It is not a sign of scientificality (?) being the most important.
In order to be scientific, we must dare to question the need for being scientific.
On 8/10/07, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
Milos Rancic wrote:
- Encyclopedia follows scientific method, not religious, not political. *
Put this way, your statement sounds far more like a religious dogma than a scientifically established truth.
I would like to know what was in my statement like a religious dogma (private mail would be good enough; I just want to know what is wrong).
Let's apply the scientific method: I propose an alternative truth, and we'll see if you can prove me wrong. I suggest that "scientific" is a word used in the *marketing* of traditional encyclopedias, that has little or no real meaning for the actual contents. The term is used because it has prevailed in marketing. If two competing encyclopedias were equal (do we have any examples?) except for the use of the word "scientific", the one that used "scientific" in its self-description would sell better. In many cases, that an encyclopedia describes it self as "scientific" often means nothing more than people employed in science (well-known professors) have contributed articles.
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
In fact, "compiled by prominent scholars" is an even stronger marketing term than "scientific" for an encyclopedia. This is "the authoritarian trick" that Citizendium tries to pull on Wikipedia. It would be interesting to know what effect that difference in marketing would have if the contents were comparable.
I agree that there is/were a lot of propaganda by of traditional encyclopedias. Also, Wikipedia has the best *encyclopedic* (and because of that scientific) principles in comparison to other encyclopedias (I think that a lot of articles in Britannica wouldn't pass our NOR, NPOV nor V conditions). (Of course, I don't know anything about some other, not well known encyclopedias; but according to Serbian, Croatian etc. encyclopedias, I may say that they have just a lot more problems then Britannica has.)
But the contents of CZ and WP are not comparable. Wikipedia wins in comprehensiveness. And this is "the size trick" of encyclopedia marketing, as in "20 volumes must be better than 10". Just look at the Spanish "Enciclopedia universal ilustrada europeo-americana" (70 volumes, 1908-1930). If the size trick was useless, this venture would go bancrupt, but they didn't and they were able to output a 10 volume appendix in 1930-1933. Apparently they were very successful. But just how scientific were they?
...
In order to be scientific, we must dare to question the need for being scientific.
It is good to think about successfulness of Wikipedia, but our primary goal is not to be successful, but to make encyclopedia. And encyclopedia is a scientific project, like astronomy is a science.
While I don't think anything against trying to make something different, it is not possible to build encyclopedia outside of scientific method, like it is not possible to research physical laws outside of it.
The fact that so much discussion within Wikipedia now focuses on verifyability and being scientific, is only explained by the fact that raw size has already been taken care of. (The Spanish Enciclopedia universal was 165 million words, a size that the English Wikipedia database passed in March 2005.) It is not a sign of scientificality (?) being the most important.
Yes, we started with another phase of building Wikipedia. For a couple of big projects it is not anymore important how big they are, but how encyclopedic are they. When you are building community, it is hard to be strict in using well known principles. (Actually, it very often goes to not imposing some principles because of community building.)
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
The wording of the section about foreign-language sources (in [[WP:V]]) is ambiguous. It needs to state that foreign-language sources are allowed, and even encouraged.
Most Chinese speakers come from mainland China, where Wikipedia is banned. Open proxies are the only way to bypass such censorship, but we have a policy against editing from open proxies. However, discussion about this issue belongs in another thread.
2007/8/11, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
-- 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
That section on WP:V is very bad, that actually promotes using only english language references. That is why the en.wikipedia will always stay biased. Also most people will only allow internet sources unfortunately. Because of our majority rules concept (whether you like it or not the major decides what is true on wikipedia if they know about the subject or not. This has been the reality for years now) it is impossible for someone with a couple of good books/referenced works about a subject to win a disagreement with someone who uses one dodgy website as a source. Simply because the books are not available to all the people (because they would have to buy them, or they are printed in a third country) while all of them can base their opinion on that one dodgy website as all of them can access that.
This is why after editting since 2003 I gave up thinking that wikipedia could ever be unbiased or that articles can become of a really high quality. If someone puts a lot of time in something referencing and stuff out of books. It will eventually be editted to a comatose state by the mass because hey ..... it is on the internet so it is true! No matter how hard we try we will never ever get around this. Wikipedia will be mediocre at best.
Waerth
The wording of the section about foreign-language sources (in [[WP:V]]) is ambiguous. It needs to state that foreign-language sources are allowed, and even encouraged.
Most Chinese speakers come from mainland China, where Wikipedia is banned. Open proxies are the only way to bypass such censorship, but we have a policy against editing from open proxies. However, discussion about this issue belongs in another thread.
2007/8/11, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
-- 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
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I agree.
2007/8/11, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th:
That section on WP:V is very bad, that actually promotes using only english language references. That is why the en.wikipedia will always stay biased. Also most people will only allow internet sources unfortunately. Because of our majority rules concept (whether you like it or not the major decides what is true on wikipedia if they know about the subject or not. This has been the reality for years now) it is impossible for someone with a couple of good books/referenced works about a subject to win a disagreement with someone who uses one dodgy website as a source. Simply because the books are not available to all the people (because they would have to buy them, or they are printed in a third country) while all of them can base their opinion on that one dodgy website as all of them can access that.
This is why after editting since 2003 I gave up thinking that wikipedia could ever be unbiased or that articles can become of a really high quality. If someone puts a lot of time in something referencing and stuff out of books. It will eventually be editted to a comatose state by the mass because hey ..... it is on the internet so it is true! No matter how hard we try we will never ever get around this. Wikipedia will be mediocre at best.
Waerth
The wording of the section about foreign-language sources (in [[WP:V]])
is
ambiguous. It needs to state that foreign-language sources are allowed,
and
even encouraged.
Most Chinese speakers come from mainland China, where Wikipedia is
banned.
Open proxies are the only way to bypass such censorship, but we have a policy against editing from open proxies. However, discussion about this issue belongs in another thread.
2007/8/11, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
-- Lars Aronsson (lars@aronsson.se) Aronsson Datateknik - http://aronsson.se
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On 8/11/07, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
That section on WP:V is very bad, that actually promotes using only english language references.
This is not true. WP:V says that it prefers sources in English only if a source in other language is saying the same thing as a source in English, as well as translation in English is preferred option then original paper in other language. This is completely reasonable policy.
Hoi, It is a policy reasonably to comply with when you are aware of this other source in the English language. This is definetly not a given and it cannot be expected. So imho it is a policy based on wishful thinking, not really practical. Thanks, GerardM
On 8/12/07, Milos Rancic millosh@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/11/07, Waerth waerth@asianet.co.th wrote:
That section on WP:V is very bad, that actually promotes using only english language references.
This is not true. WP:V says that it prefers sources in English only if a source in other language is saying the same thing as a source in English, as well as translation in English is preferred option then original paper in other language. This is completely reasonable policy.
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
Hoi, The way I understand it is, we have a policy against the anonymous editing from behind open proxies. A big difference. Thanks, GerardM
On 8/11/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
The wording of the section about foreign-language sources (in [[WP:V]]) is ambiguous. It needs to state that foreign-language sources are allowed, and even encouraged.
Most Chinese speakers come from mainland China, where Wikipedia is banned. Open proxies are the only way to bypass such censorship, but we have a policy against editing from open proxies. However, discussion about this issue belongs in another thread.
2007/8/11, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se:
Milos Rancic wrote:
I used "scientific" in very exact sense of "scientific method", not as a marketing.
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
-- 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
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2007/8/11, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
The way I understand it is, we have a policy against the anonymous editing from behind open proxies. A big difference.
The policy also includes the creation of new usernames, so the difference is just academic.
Open proxies (such as Tor nodes) used to be softblocked, but recently, hardblocking of open proxies has become the norm. This needs to change.
2007/8/11, Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com:
2007/8/11, GerardM gerard.meijssen@gmail.com:
The way I understand it is, we have a policy against the anonymous
editing
from behind open proxies. A big difference.
The policy also includes the creation of new usernames, so the difference is just academic.
-- Andre Engels, andreengels@gmail.com ICQ: 6260644 -- Skype: a_engels
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 11/08/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
Open proxies (such as Tor nodes) used to be softblocked, but recently, hardblocking of open proxies has become the norm. This needs to change.
Not going to happen. Soft-blocked open proxies are a firehose of vandalism. en:wp recently had a rogue admin, User:Runcorn, who was making hard blocks into soft ones so their sockpuppets could go wild through them. (The same user is still, I think, an admin on en:wikiquote, only because there isn't actually any procedure to remove the sysop bit involuntarily from people on en:wq.)
- d.
Could we start a new thread about this issue?
I don't think it's worth blocking over a billion people to stop a few vandals and sockpuppets.
2007/8/12, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com:
On 11/08/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
Open proxies (such as Tor nodes) used to be softblocked, but recently, hardblocking of open proxies has become the norm. This needs to change.
Not going to happen. Soft-blocked open proxies are a firehose of vandalism. en:wp recently had a rogue admin, User:Runcorn, who was making hard blocks into soft ones so their sockpuppets could go wild through them. (The same user is still, I think, an admin on en:wikiquote, only because there isn't actually any procedure to remove the sysop bit involuntarily from people on en:wq.)
- d.
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On 8/11/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think it's worth blocking over a billion people to stop a few vandals and sockpuppets.
Just a little hyperbole, don't you think?
-Matt
haha, yeah, only a little one... :-P
On 8/14/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
On 8/11/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
I don't think it's worth blocking over a billion people to stop a few vandals and sockpuppets.
Just a little hyperbole, don't you think?
-Matt
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 12/08/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
Could we start a new thread about this issue?
I don't think it's worth blocking over a billion people to stop a few vandals and sockpuppets.
"over a billion people"?
We're not blocking a billion people. The Chinese government, in their infinite wisdom, is blocking a billion people. There are ways for people to evade this block; a tiny fraction of those billion know about them.
Of those ways, some happen to be using systems that we consider a systematic security problem. We block the systematic security problems not because we don't want China to edit, but because experience has shown they get massively abused. Yes, this sucks for all concerned.
But throwng hyperbole around just makes it harder to rationally work out what to do... are there seriously a billion people who would ever be using these kinds of proxies?
I shall split discussion about Tor into another thread, so we can discuss the verifiability policy and systemic bias in this thread.
2007/8/15, Andrew Gray shimgray@gmail.com:
On 12/08/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
Could we start a new thread about this issue?
I don't think it's worth blocking over a billion people to stop a few vandals and sockpuppets.
"over a billion people"?
We're not blocking a billion people. The Chinese government, in their infinite wisdom, is blocking a billion people. There are ways for people to evade this block; a tiny fraction of those billion know about them.
Of those ways, some happen to be using systems that we consider a systematic security problem. We block the systematic security problems not because we don't want China to edit, but because experience has shown they get massively abused. Yes, this sucks for all concerned.
But throwng hyperbole around just makes it harder to rationally work out what to do... are there seriously a billion people who would ever be using these kinds of proxies?
--
- Andrew Gray andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
Wikipedia-l mailing list Wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
On 8/11/07, Lars Aronsson lars@aronsson.se wrote:
But the scientific method defines how to do original research, something Wikipedia has sworn not to do. I'm just saying this, toungue in cheek, to point out how hollow and vague the claim for being "scientific" can be. *We* should be scientific whenever we can, but the resulting *encyclopedia* can not always be. However, the word "scientific" with respect to encyclopedias is so loaded as a marketing buzzword, that it becomes practically useless.
I still don't know for any other method except a scientific (with limitations, of course) which may give us a basis to work on an encyclopedia. If you know for someone, please let me know.
The word encyclopedia, I'm told, is composed of Greek enkyklios (all-round) and paideia (education). These are the two areas where I think we should focus, but instead so much energy goes into requiring citations (verifiability) and weeding out irrelevant topics (notability). Of course, education implies solid, scientific knowledge, not superstition, propaganda or self-promotion. But it also means bringing out that knowledge in an efficient and useful way.
Analyze of words etymology doesn't say a lot because astrology would be a science then. Today, encyclopedia is a sum of knowledge which is gathered using scientific method. Yes, it is used for education and it is her primary goal. However, any religious or political pamphlet may be used for education and education may be its primary goal. So, the main difference is in a method.
I learned a lot from Wikipedia. Thanks to Wikipedia, I realized how much school system in my country was misleading me (it was socialist Yugoslavia, but the main problems were not related to socialism because it was easy to understand what was propaganda and what was not). And it is a nice feeling to imagine what amount of benefits from Wikipedia would have humans born at the beginning of this century.
However, we mustn't mislead them! And the only way to do so is be strict with verifiability.
For example, I may talk about linguistics. Outside of very well known linguistic theories and very well known linguistic features, Wikipedia articles are in a mass. One example is "distantive case". According to Google as well as according to one of the rare linguistic scholars on English Wikipedia (User:Angr), it is not a noun case, but a *verb form*. And such "fact" existed inside of [[Template:Case table]] for a long time.
If we were strict about verifiability, such stupidity would never pass. However, we are not and it is always possible that Wikipedia actively misleading its readers. This is not scientific nor educational.
* * *
Notability is completely other question. I don't think that notability is a relevant criteria for one scientific project. If something passes verifiability rules, it should go in encyclopedia.
Since raw size is no longer a problem for (the English) Wikipedia, I think we should start to ask how all-round it really is. The other day I found a "best-selling author" who didn't yet have an entry in Wikipedia (so I wrote one). And this author is American and contemporary, not a best-seller in Japan in the 1920s. And Wikipedia is still very good on popular culture, such as music, literature and movies. I think there are many other areas where we have far more left to do. (Jimmy Wales made a good comment recently about 19th century mayors of Warsaw.) We know the raw size in numbes: 2 million articles. But how can the all-roundness be expressed in numbers?
Yes, we need a lot more articles. I have a number of similar examples.
A couple of months ago, I had a couple of lecturers to teaching assistants and students of the Faculty for physical chemistry in Belgrade about work on Wikipedia. (Thanks to one professor who is Wikipedian, students of the final years have to write articles on Wikipedia as semester works.) I wanted to show them that English Wikipedia covered physical chemistry better then Serbian and that they are able to find some starting articles there. It was a kind of surprise when we realized that one basic concept of chemistry of proteins didn't existed on English Wikipedia. So, we wrote one little article in English even our main goal was to write on Serbian Wikipedia.
It seems that we came into position where we need people who know matter more in depth. In your case, it seems that we need someone who is well introduced in contemporary literature. In my cases, we need people introduced in linguistics and chemistry.
The next issue is education: How pedagogic or "efficient in teaching" is Wikipedia really? Are articles well written, well structured and easy to find? Do we care whether it answers peoples questions? This is where actual research can be applied. That is: Original research should not be documented in the articles, but original research can be used in WikiProjects as a support for improving articles. Paris is the capital of France. That simple statement is an efficient way to bring out knowledge. Loading the text with references to literature doesn't necessarily improve the encyclopedia's purpose in that case.
And after your statement, I may write that Sidney is the capital of Australia. Very simple, very logical, but false. Australia is a big country and every educated person knows that Sidney is not the capital of Australia. But, there are not so well known countries. Do you know what is a capital of random US state or a random Central Asian country? And do you think it is necessary to put a reference for that information? I explained that in Queen Victoria - Tolstoy - Broz case: for me there is no need to give a reference where Broz was born because it is well known truth to me; but it isn't to you. And, yes, there are people who use Internet and who are not familiar with the fact that Paris is the capitol of France.
About original research: I don't think that WikiProject space is a good place for that, but I think that something like that should exist as a Wikimedian project.
The biography I wrote for a best-selling author does improve the all-roundedness of Wikipedia. It's short, but well structured and easy to read. Unfortunately, we have no good system for indicating this progress. But now the article is flagged with {{unreferenced}}, as that is the main activity going on. Nobody questions the facts expressed in the article, neither its notability. It's just the lack of <ref> tags. It would be easy (and tempting) to fake that by making up a source somewhere. Just add a <ref> tag, and all is back to scientific again.
I am preparing one document which would deal with this issue: how to know what is a reliable source exactly. And Gerard Meijssen mentioned to me that OmegaWiki team is working on MediaWiki extension which would allow contributors to mark what is a reliable source and what is not.
Milos Rancic wrote:
On 8/10/07, J.L.W.S. The Special One hildanknight@gmail.com wrote:
- Sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Sinosphere (for example)
are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere.
As someone who is a part of a culture which is not so good covered on Internet (Serbian), I think that I am completely relevant to talk about this issue.
If the only sources available about a subject are in the Serbian language, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using them as references.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. Yes, it is much more then just an encyclopedia, but it is primary encyclopedia.
- Encyclopedia follows scientific method, not religious, not political. *
One of the basic principles of science is to say that it may describe something and that it is not possible to describe something else. *Not possible* may mean that it is not possible to do it temporary, but it also may mean that it is not possible to do at all.
"Scientific method" would say that all that we say is hypothesis subject to verification. Saying that it necessarily excludes the opposite is a fallacy. At first glance the wave and particle theories of light seem contradictory, but they have had to learn to live with each other. It is logically fallacious to say that because a thory is determined to be valid an apparently contrary theory must be false. A lack of adequate scientific proof for a theory does not imply that that theory has been proven false.
Science, politics and religion do not together define a complete set of all modes of investigation. Other bases can exist too.
Encyclopedia doesn't "think", it cites what do other think. There are no such things like "well known truths" for encyclopedia.
Yes. Actually it cites what others say, not what they think. The term "scientific method" is misleading. We cite what people say, and thus establish the meta-fact that they said it; we are not in a position to judge whether what they say is true. That's how we diverge from scientific method.
Unsourced sentences like "Queen Victoria was born in London" (well known truth for one person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) leads to sentences like "Leo Tolstoy was born in Yasnaya Polyana" (not so well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere) and "Josib Broz was born in Kumrovec" (not well known truth for a person from Anglo-Saxon cultural sphere). (I may make an elaborate that we are making general encyclopedia in 200 language editions, not encyclopedias of particular cultures in their languages; I may also elaborate about examples which I chose ... Plus, it is completely unscientific to say that something is "well known" and something is not except you have a very complex research about what are "well known truths" in different parts of the world.)
So, the only valid method is to have sources for all of them. And we have to fight against systematic bias, but we shouldn't make Wikipedia unscientific in such fight.
There is a place for standard reference works. These are works that contain the basic facts about a subject or a person's life. Whether you agree or disagree with what Tolstoy and Broz stood for, there is unlikely to be a dispute about where they were born. We should not need detailed repetitive sources about such things.
- Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream
encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
I think that we need one method for all sources. If it is needed to go down because of non-academic topics, then it should. However, it seems that I am not so introduced in differences in approaches.
We should avoid putting square pegs in round holes.
Ec
On 8/11/07, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
As someone who is a part of a culture which is not so good covered on Internet (Serbian), I think that I am completely relevant to talk about this issue.
If the only sources available about a subject are in the Serbian language, there is absolutely nothing wrong with using them as references.
It was about any source, not about sources related to Serbian culture. Of course that language should not play any role in relevancy of a source.
In the contrast to UK, USA or Germany, Serbia doesn't have so developed Internet and so many people well introduced in Internet technologies. For example, it is usual that it is not possible to check data about some municipality because municipality doesn't have a website or website is saying just "This is a website of municipality XX, president of municipality is YY and you may send an email to webmaster@municipalityXX (municipality in Serbia has similar size to county in USA and it is a couple of times bigger then municipality in France).
So, the point was that it is much harder to find some reference for a topic related to Serbia then for a topic related for Germany. No matter is it in English, Serbian or German.
Yes. Actually it cites what others say, not what they think. The term "scientific method" is misleading. We cite what people say, and thus establish the meta-fact that they said it; we are not in a position to judge whether what they say is true. That's how we diverge from scientific method.
We don't diverge from scientific method, but we only have limits because of the type of scientific product. Someone who makes synthetic work shouldn't deal with experiments, too, but with arranging previous experiments into synthetic work. However, both of examples (encyclopedia and synthetic work) are using scientific method.
It would be good if someone makes a good article (in Wikipedia name space or in the main name space) about methods of encyclopedic work. If there is article like this, we wouldn't spend a lot of time explaining what Wikipedia is.
There is a place for standard reference works. These are works that contain the basic facts about a subject or a person's life. Whether you agree or disagree with what Tolstoy and Broz stood for, there is unlikely to be a dispute about where they were born. We should not need detailed repetitive sources about such things.
This was just an example for the statement that we need a source for every statement and not only for not so well known statements. We need a reference for Tolstoy and Broz as well as we need a reference for Queen Victoria.
BTW, for every person born in former Yugoslavia before 1980 it is "well known truth" that Broz was born in Kumrovec and no one of such persons would ask for a reference. But, we are making a general encyclopedia, not an encyclopedia for particular culture.
J.L.W.S. The Special One wrote:
- Sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Sinosphere (for example)
are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere.
Then we need to have more Chinese speakers who can link to those Chinese language sources.
- Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream
encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
Essentially, verification standards should vary with the subject area. Even among academic topics, not all have the same standards.
Ec
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