[Wikimedia-l] [Wikipedia-l] Sort it

Fri Oct 26 12:36:14 UTC 2012

Too often what happens is: I try to help a newbie by email; but before they
make much progress another admin comes and blocks them for the damage
they've already caused. Obviously the newbie gives up.

Suggested technical improvement: create notices like editnotice on the
block screen saying "Admin xyz is mentoring this newbie - please consult
him before you bite."
On Oct 26, 2012 1:03 PM, "Magnus Manske" <magnusmanske at googlemail.com>
wrote:

> As a biologist, I'd say it's the "I need to figure this out"
> mentality, which leads to frustration if the system (which you had
> believed you figured out!) apparently turns against you.
>
> My advice here is: That should not happen, but there is so much more
> to do on Wikipedia; let this specific issue rest, for month or years
> or forever, and contribute something else. The issue will get sorted,
> with or without you, eventually.
>
> Magnus
>
>
>
> On Fri, Oct 26, 2012 at 12:56 PM, Charles Andrès
> <charles.andres at wikimedia.ch> wrote:
> > Amir is right, without judging this specific case, the pattern describe
> here is a problem.
> >
> > Especially the massive revert attitude , it's really a challenge for
> retaining new specialist editor.
> >
> > Charles
> >
> > ___________________________________________________________
> > Charles ANDRES, Chairman
> > "Wikimedia CH" – Association for the advancement of free knowledge –
> > www.wikimedia.ch
> > Skype: charles.andres.wmch
> > IRC://irc.freenode.net/wikimedia-ch
> >
> > Le 26 oct. 2012 à 13:43, "Amir E. Aharoni" <amir.aharoni at mail.huji.ac.il>
> a écrit :
> >
> >> Shortened, and grossly over-simplified:
> >> A biologist wrote some things about biology and they were not
> challenged.
> >> Then he wrote some things about dinosaurs, and they were reverted. If
> >> I understood correctly, the reason for the reverts was that it
> >> appeared to be original research (WP:NOR).
> >> And now the biologist is pissed off, possibly for a good reason, and
> >> wants his previous contributions removed, too.
> >>
> >> This is a story that repeats itself quite often, with surprisingly
> >> similar details: an expert does some acceptable things, then doing
> >> some things that turn out to rouse controversy, then wanting to retire
> >> with a storm. I'm not implying that the expert is bad, absolutely not;
> >> I'm just noting a pattern.
> >>
> >> Whatever the details of the story are, it's not good and it may
> >> justify discussion.
> >>
> >> But as a meta-comment, it should be done on wikien-l or on
> >> wikimedia-l, and not on this list, which is called "wikipedia-l", but
> >> is not active in practice.
> >>
> >> --
> >> Amir
> >>
> >> 2012/10/26 Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton at gmail.com>
> >>>
> >>> TL;DR (Too long; didn't read.)
> >>>
> >>> Please provide a summary that makes clear what point you are trying to
> make...
> >>>
> >>> On 26 October 2012 11:55, John Jackson <strangetruther at gmail.com>
> wrote:
> >>>> Greetings –
> >>>>
> >>>> I hope this is a good place to send a weighty message to Wikipedia.
> >>>> You’ll want to read all through.
> >>>>
> >>>> I am a scientist who has always liked the Wikipedia idea, and I like
> >>>> your implementation.  Lately I’ve started making contributions.
> >>>> Although I’m a cognitive scientist who taught biological psychology at
> >>>> degree level for several years and have done AI research since the
> >>>> ‘80’s, I’ve diverted for a decade or more to resolve a set of major
> >>>> evolutionary puzzles.
> >>>>
> >>>> Fairly peripheral but within the overall project was an investigation
> >>>> of bird breathing, and I decided to piece together the research into
> >>>> it, and deliver it properly to the public.  Trust me, the finer
> >>>> details were obscure.  On the way I discovered why penguins’ lungs
> >>>> don’t collapse even at 500m when whales’ lungs collapse by 100m; I
> >>>> found out what the neopulmo did (though not why) and why penguins
> >>>> don’t have it, and I changed our understanding of flow within it; I
> >>>> also resolved the old chestnut of whether birds had counter-current
> >>>> exchange in their lungs.  That is, completely discovered, not just for
> >>>> myself.  By careful editing and addition including the long overdue
> >>>> diagram the subject needed, I converted the two Wikipedia pages
> >>>> dealing with bird breathing from an incomplete mire to a place of
> >>>> revelation (though the German version needs starting afresh, and
> >>>> Duncker agrees).  But it was an honour do so.
> >>>>
> >>>> More central to my overall project was cladogenesis, the heart of
> >>>> palaeontology and just the thing that I, as an MSc in info. sys.
> >>>> engineering would be expected to get into.  I’ve written my own clad.
> >>>> software, invented and implemented my own heuristic version, proved
> >>>> the theorem in graph theory that resolves an issue in checking
> >>>> evolutionary trees by time and rooting them, and highlighted a serious
> >>>> statistical fallacy invalidating another major current of work in the
> >>>> time-checking of trees.
> >>>>
> >>>> In these activities I was almost entirely alone as regards other
> >>>> workers in the overall field, since that field, dinobird
> >>>> palaeontology, is notorious for its abuse of the lack of scientific
> >>>> and indeed academic constraint that all historical disciplines are
> >>>> prey to.  Applicants for research positions into that biological
> >>>> science, which relies heavily on computer science and statistics, are
> >>>> usually accepted with just a geology first degree.  Put succinctly but
> >>>> honestly, the standard of science amongst professional dinobird
> >>>> palaeontologists is crap, so much so that I’ve never taken the idea of
> >>>> publishing formally in the field very seriously.  I do from time to
> >>>> time in AI, but any scientist with something sensible to say in
> >>>> dinobird palaeo will always be violating sacred errors and be blocked.
> >>>> Although useless, the field is very proud and stubborn.
> >>>>
> >>>> But there is a layer of humanity too stupid even to become
> >>>> professional palaeontologists – and guess what?  They’ve established a
> >>>> self-aggrandising population in the basement of Wikipedia, grooming
> >>>> their egos by becoming gatekeepers.  I’m sick of the sight of their
> >>>> pathetic award stars.
> >>>>
> >>>> I wasn’t surprised; in fact I’d been surprised by the ease with which
> >>>> my bird-lung editing had been accepted, which is why I’d turned my
> >>>> attention to another problem page that was actually even more of a
> >>>> mess.
> >>>>
> >>>> Most people, even those interested in the subject, have no idea why
> >>>> dromaeosaurs had such strange claws, teeth and tails.  Many even doubt
> >>>> that the special foot claw was a weapon.  And because they have no
> >>>> understanding of the vital importance of backtracking in knowledge
> >>>> engineering, they can’t escape the rut of believing dromaeosaurs were
> >>>> “pre” flight (“pre” of course being a very dodgy evolutionary
> >>>> concept).  But solving this kind of thing was easy compared to related
> >>>> subjects, and other visionaries such as Paul and Osmolska had made
> >>>> their contributions and published some of the basics.  The four-winged
> >>>> flight of volant dromaeosaurs was harder but I found a solution to
> >>>> that too (...though you’re not going to like it; even I didn’t).
> >>>>
> >>>> I know what you’re thinking – Original Work.  But of course that was
> >>>> taken account of: much of the problem with the Velociraptor page was
> >>>> balance – some theories had been simply ignored, even though works
> >>>> mentioning them were already in the citation list.  Other problems
> >>>> were solved by pointing out glaring illogicalities: ensuring the
> >>>> explanation of a difference between two things must be based on some
> >>>> other difference applying to them.  Things like that don’t need
> >>>> citations, things that needed them were given them, and when necessary
> >>>> I cited my own book.  That after all is very common in Wikipedia, and
> >>>> there’s no point frowning on the basic principle (especially when it’s
> >>>> a good book!).
> >>>>
> >>>> As you may have guessed or already knew, anyone bringing much-needed
> >>>> but unfamiliar and unwelcome science (i.e. any science) to dinobird
> >>>> palaeontology is automatically put on the hate list and from then on
> >>>> it’s just sociology.  Pointing out that modern science knows better
> >>>> than to talk of “facts”, is the kind of thing that sets the idiots
> >>>> off, but is one essential principle Wikipedia needs to take on board.
> >>>> Luckily the pseudo-scientists usually give themselves away, as they
> >>>> did on the Velociraptor page most bizarrely.  First, they insisted the
> >>>> tail couldn’t bend vertically, alongside a picture showing the last
> >>>> two-thirds bending up through 60º.  Then they insisted its prey only
> >>>> had one leg whereas two could be seen even in the thumbnail.  No
> >>>> accusations of original work at risk there.  Nonetheless they kept on
> >>>> reversing EVERYTHING I’d written – the illogicality-busting, the
> >>>> theory-balance restoration, and even corrections to their crap which
> >>>> was contradicted by the images in front of their eyes.
> >>>>
> >>>> The result?  Someone’s stopped the repeated reversals, and of course,
> >>>> they chose to stop it on the lunatic side.  Irrespective of the
> >>>> “Protection is not an endorsement of the current text” message, this
> >>>> “temporary” status is a massive insult to science, which is why it’s
> >>>> important, and a massive insult to me which has ensured my action.
> >>>>
> >>>> I’m going to find the 100 most influential loud-mouthed Wiki-haters on
> >>>> the net, show them the crucial photos, and the illogicalities, and I
> >>>> hope I’m going to be able to say: “Look – some tiny-minded
> >>>> pseudo-scientists started to infect Wikipedia filling even science
> >>>> pages with blatant rubbish, but see how good it is?  It put them in
> >>>> their place!”
> >>>>
> >>>> I know an organisation of your size won’t bother with anything that
> >>>> can’t affect it, and I haven’t time to dissolve you with charm.  I’m
> >>>> considering removing all the good work I’ve done in the bird breathing
> >>>> pages, and their talk pages that explain it, as a token of what you’ll
> >>>> lose if you reward my kind of work with insults.  I was happy to give
> >>>> it free but people can always buy the book.  Put it back if you want,
> >>>> but if you don’t, the pages will lose a lot and if you do you’ll
> >>>> underline my value.  And of course there’s the stuff above that could
> >>>> go one way or another depending on you.  Much will be done before the
> >>>> election and as much as is necessary when it’s over.  Don’t just hand
> >>>> this over to another of the dinosaur Wiki-wankers, and don’t let them
> >>>> keep spuriously using the word “source” to justify feeding the world
> >>>> crap.
> >>>>
> >>>> John V. Jackson.
> >>>>
> http://sciencepolice2010.wordpress.com/2010/12/02/sciencepolice2010-launches/
> >>>>
> http://sciencepolice2010.files.wordpress.com/2011/06/sciencepolice-14-latest.pdf
> >>>>
> >>>> _______________________________________________
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> >>>> Wikipedia-l at lists.wikimedia.org
> >>>> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikipedia-l
> >>>
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