[Wikipedia-l] A quick thought about 1.0

The Cunctator cunctator at kband.com
Fri Dec 19 00:44:17 UTC 2003


> From: Erik Moeller on Thursday, December 18, 2003 4:57 PM
> Daniel-
> >> I feel that it is extremely tedious to have to click around
> >> many times and load many pages to get a complete
> >> picture of an issue, a person etc.
> 
> > There is little difference between clicking on a TOC link in a huge
> article
> > than clicking on a link to another article.
> 
> When I read an article about a well defined subject, and I want to get
all
> the information about it, I don't click around at all. I just read the
> article from top to bottom. I might skip a certain section, but I
don't
> need to click anywhere. And when I do use the TOC, it is substantially
> faster in terms of latency than browsing of separate articles. Not
only do
> I not need to wait for the page to load, I can also easily get context
--
> information about where I am within the structure of a topic -- simply
by
> scrolling, rather than using back->click->back->click..

Well, that's nice, but it's not fair or appropriate for you to assume
that what you like should be mandated for all. Assuming that all readers
would be happiest if they had the version you like the best--when there
is evidence to the contrary--is not appropriate.

I, for one, when I read a sentence like 

The [[asthetic appeal of sport]] is what sports art, including sport in
film, attempts to capture.

..will follow the link if I don't feel as if I understand what the
"asthetic appeal of sport" is; but if I feel that I do understand it, I
am glad that the author didn't force me to waste time skimming through
information I didn't need.

> If I have an article like [[sports]], after Cunctator split it up into
> lots of tiny fragments, this possibility is no longer there. To some
> extent I agree with the split ups, but I find it questionable whether
> [[professional sports]], [[aesthetic appeal of sport]], [[nationalism
and
> sport]], [[female sport]] etc. should really be separate entries. Even
> worse is that the article has a long list of "See also"s -- these are
one
> of the worst ways to structure information.

Erm--I didn't break out [[female sport]]. Don't bame me for that one.

I *drastically shortened* the list of "See also"s. Again, don't blame me
for that one.

The one complaint that is reasonable and honest is that my
summarizations of the subtopics in [[sport]] were too drastic. 

But if we take the case of [[professional sports]], the [[sport]]
article discusses how professional sports rises from sport's appeal as
passive entertainment, how professional sports have given rise to
several related industries, and how professional sports comes into
conflict with the concept of amateur sportsmanship.

And that is, in my opinion, a reasonable summary of the most important
issues relevant to our basic understanding of sport that can be gleaned
from professional sports.

I don't know if all my edits were exactly right, but the entry needed
some drastic editing. By separating out some of the more digressive
sections it's much more clear what information is needed and what is
not.

> In my experience, separating articles so much also leads to
> inconsistencies in style and neglect of articles about fringe
subjects.
> For example, I predict that the newly created [[regulation of sport]]
will
> be neglected, while I believe it would not have been if it had been
kept
> as a section within the article. The reason is simply reduced
exposure.

Who knows? The longer the entry, the more difficult it becomes to
properly edit its subsections--or to entirely reorganize it if
necessary.

> > 30-40 KB is
> > unreadably long for all but the most important topics
> > ... A max of 15-25 KB minus markup is more
> > readable for most topics.
> 
> Well, these are mere statements of opinion. And of course the amount
of
> information that people can stomach in one sitting varies greatly. I
do
> notice, however, that these are not so far apart. If you take my
minimum
> and your maximum and take the average, you arrive at 27.5K, which
seems
> reasonable to me. The sports article is currently a mere 5K, which is
IMHO
> a clear sign that it is far too fragmented. It also has no real
summaries
> of the sub-articles it links to. Overall it gives a very
unprofessional
> impression to me.

The version beforehand felt very unprofessional to me. I expect that it
will achieve a happy medium at some point.

But I get the feeling that what feels "professional" to you is "what
would look best on paper".

> I would also probably be very pissed if Cunc had done this, without
prior
> discussion as in this case, to one of "my" articles. One key reason is
> that the history gets completely lost in the process. Sure, you can
still
> fish it out, but people will assume that Cunc wrote the individual
pieces.
> I have invested many days of research in some articles I worked on,
and
> getting fair credit in the page history is very little to ask for in
> return. Having a carefully planned out article structure messed up in
this
> way would also make me quite angry. Be bold, but also be respectful
toward
> other people's work.

I'm sorry, but I don't think that it's appropriate to take editing
changes like this personally. It's counterproductive to collaboration
and egocentric. Taking edits for structure personally doesn't help
anyone.

It's a lot better for everyone to get your high from the act of selfless
contribution or the knowledge that you've insinuated your knowledge and
perspective invisibly into the stream.

Once you contribute to Wikipedia, it's *not your work* any more. The
original contribution is, but that's it. *You are explicitly agreeing to
a merciless editing process*.

It's reasonable and right to say "I think your changes have hurt the
coverage of this issue in these ways". It's unreasonable to say "I'm
angry because you changed my entries, whether or not it's for the
better."

If you're so worried about credit, then write code to allow people to
rename sections to new pages so that the version history is remembered.

> > /That/ is far more useful for the reader ..
> 
> I'm glad that you are so confident that you are correct. For me the
issue
> is still quite foggy. While I agree with you that summaries of
subsections
> are useful, I feel they should not be created needlessly. That is, if
> we're below a certain size -- maybe the 27.5K from above -- we don't
need
> to split the article up unless there is a clear logical separation.
For
> example, in the [[Mother Teresa]] article we split away everything
that is
> about the [[Missionaries of Charity]] (Teresa's order), which is fine
with
> me because there's a clear distinction here. But stuff like "History
of
> .." should really only be split off if we're approaching the size
limit,
> in my opinion. Otherwise the disadvantages of splitting appear to
outweigh
> the advantages.

Again, your idea of a reasonable size for an entry differs from mine,
and from other people.

I think "History of X" entries are very different from "X" entries. The
entry "X" should tell the person what X is--not what it was.

--tc




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