[WikiEN-l] "Articles of War" -- Wikipedia infographic

[phoebe ayers]

Hi -- I'm not sure about a group focused on visualizations, but
wiki-research-l at lists.wikimedia.org is a good place to ask about
research studies ...
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l

-- phoebe

On Thu, Aug 12, 2010 at 7:37 PM, William Beutler
<williambeutler at gmail.com> wrote:
> Thanks, Phoebe. I finally finished my post on this, now
> here<http://thewikipedian.net/2010/08/12/wikipedia-infographic-lamest-edit-wars/>.
> Although it's a little more rant-y than I usually get, I hope McCandless
> finds this, takes it well and goes back to the drawing board. Getting
> Gizmodo to post that if it happens... well, one can dream.
>
> As I've alluded to, I am working on a visualization project involving
> Wikipedia, so if there is any list or on-wiki group to know about, someone
> please let me know!
>
> And if there is not a more rigorous study or project about edit wars, I'd
> love to see that, too.
>
> Cheers
>
>
> On Tue, Aug 10, 2010 at 10:33 AM, phoebe ayers <phoebe.wiki at gmail.com>wrote:
>
>> On Mon, Aug 9, 2010 at 4:42 PM, William Beutler
>> <williambeutler at gmail.com> wrote:
>> > I'm working on a blog post about this, but here's an infographic from
>> David
>> > McCandless (who does some nice work, i.e. Information is
>> > Beautiful<http://www.informationisbeautiful.net/>)
>> > about Wikipedia edit wars. Full thing
>> > here<
>> http://cache.gawkerassets.com/assets/images/4/2010/08/wikipedia-edit-wars.png
>> >
>> > .
>> >
>> > At least it acknowledges its source is
>> > WP:LAMEST<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Lamest_edit_wars>,
>> > which is intentionally humorous, but sure wasn't made with statistical
>> > precision in mind. So he's done something else: it looks to the average
>> > reader like 11,000 edits were spent on the subject of Freddie Mercury's
>> > ethnic history in early 2002, but he's clearly taking the total number of
>> > edits and that's the oldest record of the article on Wikipedia. It also
>> > categorizes incidents glibly (or just inaccurately) listing Jimbo and
>> > Wikipedia-related subjects as "Religion" -- and the question over which
>> > Palin was more famous occurred in 2008 (which makes sense) not 2003
>> (which
>> > doesn't) as it's listed in there.
>> >
>> > Maybe I'm making too much of this, but while I think it's one thing for
>> > Cracked or Something Awful to joke about Wikipedia, I think if you're
>> > offering up visual representations of information, more care should be
>> given
>> > to accuracy. Erik Zachte does some great work -- it would be nice to see
>> > more of that developed for visual interest of non-Wikipedians. That's
>> > something else I've been thinking about, but I'm curious to hear what
>> others
>> > think.
>>
>> Infographics are awesome, but many people rarely take the time to
>> investigate the data behind them; thanks for doing so.
>>
>> I don't know if this is something that would specifically come under
>> the purview of the new research committee that is being formed
>> (http://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/foundation-l/2010-August/060306.html
>> )
>> but I definitely think this is the kind of thing such a group might
>> facilitate -- putting out a call for designers to make infographics
>> out of various things that we need to be visualized, or helping
>> getting community review of various efforts. I'm not sure what the
>> best way for a researcher or designer to get quick Wikipedian peer
>> review of their work is now (to catch issues like you identify above);
>> maybe a post on the village pump?
>>
>> BTW, do we have a *non*-humorous page about edit wars with *good*
>> examples? I'm not sure if there's a good set of example disputes with
>> their resolutions somewhere -- this would be great to have since it's
>> invariably one of the first things non-editors ask about, in my
>> experience, and having examples (beyond just the vague description of
>> process) helps convey what happens.
>>
>> -- phoebe
>>
>> --
>> * I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
>> <at> gmail.com *
>>
>> _______________________________________________
>> WikiEN-l mailing list
>> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
>> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>>
> _______________________________________________
> WikiEN-l mailing list
> WikiEN-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
>



-- 
* I use this address for lists; send personal messages to phoebe.ayers
<at> gmail.com *