Just judging from this email, I tend to agree with Smallbones and based on
the name alone I would vote against this project. That said, I believe I
understand the motivation behind this and I would vote for a project
called "WikiProject
Content Synchronization" which would be the (re)birth of CoSyne, a
more-or-less forgotten project once supported by WMNL, see here (Dutch
only, sorry):
https://nl.wikimedia.org/wiki/CoSyne
The problem with accuracy is that there is no single truth and no single
form of accuracy. Wikpedia has proven time and again that the only thing
that seems to improve accuracy over time is "more eyes". What we can do is
make it easier for casual readers to see serious discrepancies in data
across projects. The CoSyne project happened before Wikidata, but today we
can harness the power of Wikidata to make important improvements and enable
constructive edits easily. For example, work is being done to link all
images of a painting on Commons to it's Wikidata item, which enables people
who care to see more (and possibly higher quality) images of paintings they
are interested in. Making more people aware of how their statements hold up
to similar statements on other projects could be a great way forward to
attract more constructive (micro-)contributions and to improve accuracy.
On Fri, Mar 25, 2016 at 9:44 AM, Olatunde Isaac <reachout2isaac(a)gmail.com>
wrote:
Dear all,
We seek community input on a proposed WikiProject called "WikiProject
Accuracy" conceptualized by Ms. Betty Wills (User:Atsme). Following a
recent discussion with Betty, I decided to bring it here for community
input because of the possible controversy that may arise from establishing
a WikiProject like this.
The primary goals of WikiProject Accuracy are to:
*Increase quality of Wikipedia articles
*Increase reliability of Wikipedia articles
*Promote/improve collaboration among experienced editors
*Promote existing editors retention
Betty's ideas are to form a team of Project Accuracy Coordinators to
oversee the project, help establish criteria and minimum qualifications for
fact-check teams, help with the project's page design and tasks and to form
additional teams comprising appointed representatives from other project
teams to help coordinate and organize a list of articles for review, and
who will serve as members of Project Accuracy's Editorial Review Board
(PAERB). The PAERB will be responsible for review and approval of articles
nominated to bear the "reviewed and approved for accuracy" seal in the top
right corner of the article. The ideas also aim to support the WMF's
"Reach" campaign and help establish or re-establish credibility in
Wikipedia articles that carry the RAAFA seal as a trusted source worthy of
citing at all levels of academia, government, research, etc.
This seem like a unique approach to improving the quality of articles on
Wikipedia and increasing reliability of Wikipedia as an encyclopedia. The
idea to bring experienced editors together to serve in the editorial board
of the project sounds like a great way to benefit from the specialized
skills of all participants.
However, an editor (User:Smallbones) raised a concern on whether this is
in line with the spirit of Wikipedia which permit anyone to freely edit its
content at all levels. User:Smallbones said " An Editorial Review Board
sounds like a very interesting idea and could be fun. But actually I think
it could easily violate Wikipedia rules, such as forming some sort of
exclusive club that others couldn't join without an invitation. If it's
just another rating scheme (that anybody can participate in whenever they
want)"
I respect Smallbones concerns but I don't see a major problem with the
idea of establishing an Editorial Review Board (ERB) comprising of trusted
and experienced editors as board members. From the look of things,
WikiProject Accuracy is likely to generate controversy among Wikipedians.
The controversy will centered on whether this idea is against the vision of
Wikipedia or not. Thus, we seek broader community input on this proposed
project.
Best,
Olatunde Isaac.
Manager, Wikipedia Education Program Nigeria.
Sent from my BlackBerry® wireless handheld from Glo Mobile.
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