Our rules exist for a reason. Every one of them was agreed to by a consensus of editors. And also, just because other publications may not have an academic standard of truth, doesn't mean we shouldn't have one. The Stanford prison experiment forced subjects into a dehumanizing, adversarial, torturous experiment. I do not think being criticized for making a non notable BLP is on the same level. On Oct 27, 2014 8:08 PM, "Kerry Raymond" <kerry.raym...@gmail.com> wrote:
> I'm 100% with you both on this matter of having tried the obvious easy > solutions. If I hear one more person to propose outreach as the solution to > the gender gap or new editor retention, I think I will <insert threat of > choice here>. I do a lot of outreach here in Australia and, yes, > hand-holding works as long as you in the room with them but stops working > once they are at the mercy of the community (who will "attack" even during > the outreach). And also that kind of handholding is not scalable. We don't > just need 10 new active editors; we need 10K or even 100K new active > editors. It is indeed time to tackle the hard problem and that is changing > the "crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere". The > solution does not lie in training people to conform to that regime. Even if > people are taught how to engage with it, if people don't enjoy the > experience, of course they will walk away. Those of us still here are all > probably as stubborn as mules and with the hides of rhinoceroses (or just > enjoy being a bully safely hidden behind a pseudonym). > > > > Although "academic standards of publication" appears to held up as the > ideal behind some of the Wikipedia quality guidelines, I must say they are > higher standards than I've seen enforced at most journals or in most > conferences. And certainly I've never seen the rigid enforcement of the > nit-picking rules in the Manual of Style. I do think we are operating our > own version of the Stanford Prison Experiment > > > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stanford_prison_experiment > > > > only the difference is that they cancelled their experiment in about a > week. Ours has been running for years .... > > > > The Wikipedia article above says ... > > > > The results of the experiment have been argued to demonstrate the > impressionability and obedience of people when provided with a legitimizing > ideology and social and institutional support. > > > > "Quality control" is Wikipedia's legitimising ideology and our processes > provide it with the social and institutional support. When did you ever see > someone in an Article for Deletion discussion or similar say "let's look at > the big picture here, the WMF have a strategic priority to reverse editor > attrition or close the gender gap, let's consider our decision here with > that in mind". No, it's always "we must decide this according to our > rules", raising any other point is discouraged (you get slapped down for > it). Of course, I question why WMF allows the community to make and enforce > rules when the outcome appears to be working against their stated > priorities. That's not strong governance, that's weakness. I don't think > WMF needs to control everything top-down (and indeed it would not be > scalable if they did) but they do need to set boundaries in some places in > relation to the community's control over policy and process to ensure the > success of the WMF strategic plan. For example, I would say that if a new > editor creates a new article which isn't obviously spam/vandalism, does it > really matter to let that article survive because it isn't notable enough > according to the guidelines for that category of article. At the very least > could we defer the discussion of deletion for a few months in the hope it > is further developed to a better standard by then? Perhaps a two stage > process, first communicate with the contributor(s) with **precise** > concerns about how it needs to be improved and they have a month to do it, > and that help is available (at the TeaHouse or wherever). (Feedback is > often too vague, saying "not notable" is not helpful and saying WP:ANYTHING > is not helpful either as it looks like a string of gibberish written like > that and even if the link is clicked, the resulting page is full of jargon > and often meaningless to the newbie). > > > > Maybe we should introduce a karma system (like Slashdot). You can only do > certain actions if you have high karma. So "positive emotional" actions > like thanking, wikilove, writing nice sentiment messages, making > uncontested contributions to articles, etc earn you karma and only high > karma people can take "negative emotional" actions (undoing - other than > vandalism), proposing for deletion, voting to delete, because they reduce > your karma etc. This might at least slow down the out-and-out bullies who > engage in lots of "emotionally negative" behaviours ... > > > > Kerry > > > > > ------------------------------ > > *From:* wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org [mailto: > wiki-research-l-boun...@lists.wikimedia.org] *On Behalf Of *Aaron Halfaker > *Sent:* Tuesday, 21 October 2014 12:08 AM > *To:* Pine W > *Cc:* wikie...@lists.wikimedia.org; Editor Engagement; Rachel diCerbo; > Addressing gender equity and exploring ways to increase theparticipation of > women within Wikimedia projects.; Wiki Research-l; A mailing list for the > Analytics Team at WMF and everybody who has aninterest in Wikipedia and > analytics. > *Subject:* Re: [Wiki-research-l] Research discussion: Visions for > Wikipedia > > > > Hey Pine, > > > > Thanks for prod'ing the conversation. See also the discussion about > Wikipedia's decreasing adaptability on the Wikimedia analytics mailing list > here: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/pipermail/analytics/2014-October/002651.html > > > > IMO, the critical piece of evidence that English Wikipedia is suffering > from a lack of adaptive flexibility is the lack of any substantial change > to the treatment of newcomers since the massive decline in retention of > good-faith newcomers started in 2007[2]. A secondary piece of evidence is > the increasing resistance to policy/guideline (formalized norm) changes for > all editors, but especially newcomers[3]. > > > > We've seen some follow-up work that suggests that Wikipedia's complexity > itself is a barrier for new editors[7] and that these issues extend to > spaces specifically designed to support newcomers' work[6]. There have > been some interesting efforts to address the symptoms of the problem. For > example, see WP:Teahouse[4], WP:Snuggle[5] and Onboarding Research[8]. > > > > Personally, I think that the way forward is to recognize that *hard > problems are hard* because others have tried the easy/intuitive solutions > already. I think it is time to dig in and understand the fundamental, > socio-technical nature of Wikipedia. To that end, I'm working on building > data resources of strategic importance (see [9, 10, 11, 12]). I'm also > working towards experimenting with the effects of increased reflexive power > by surfacing a value-added measurement service[13]. And of course, I'm > advertising our socio-technical problems at research showcase like the one > Pine linked and when giving talks (e.g. [14]) so that we can grow our army > of wiki researchers. > > > > OMG WALL OF REFERENCES: > > 1. Halfaker, A., Geiger, R. S., Morgan, J. T., & Riedl, J. (2012). The > rise and decline of an open collaboration system: How Wikipedia's reaction > to popularity is causing its decline. *American Behavioral Scientist*, > 0002764212469365. > http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfaker13rise-preprint.pdf > > 2. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Desirable_newcomer_survival_over_time.png > from [1] Figure 4, pg. 12 > > 3. Page 17, table 2 and the two pgs preceeding it. > http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/The_Rise_and_Decline/halfaker13rise-preprint.pdf > > 4. Morgan, J. T., Bouterse, S., Walls, H., & Stierch, S. (2013, > February). Tea and sympathy: crafting positive new user experiences on > wikipedia. In *Proceedings of the 2013 conference on Computer supported > cooperative work* (pp. 839-848). ACM. > http://jtmorgan.net/jtmorgan/files/morgan_cscw2013_final.pdf > > 5. Halfaker, A., Geiger, R. S., & Terveen, L. G. (2014, April). Snuggle: > designing for efficient socialization and ideological critique. In > *Proceedings > of the 32nd annual ACM conference on Human factors in computing systems* (pp. > 311-320). ACM. > http://www-users.cs.umn.edu/~halfak/publications/Snuggle/halfaker14snuggle-preprint.pdf > > 6. Schneider, J., Gelley, B. S., & Halfaker, A. (2014, August). Accept, > decline, postpone: How newcomer productivity is reduced in English > Wikipedia by pre-publication review. In *Proceedings of The International > Symposium on Open Collaboration* (p. 26). ACM. > http://cse.poly.edu/~gelley/acceptdecline.pdf > > 7. Ford, H., & Geiger, R. S. (2012, August). Writing up rather than > writing down: Becoming wikipedia literate. In *Proceedings of the Eighth > Annual International Symposium on Wikis and Open Collaboration* (p. 16). > ACM. http://www.opensym.org/ws2012/p21wikisym2012.pdf > > 8. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Onboarding_new_Wikipedians > > 9. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Ideas/MediaWiki_events:_a_generalized_public_event_datasource > > 10. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Editor_Interaction_Data_Extraction_and_Visualization > > 11. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Automated_Notability_Detection > > 12. > https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Grants:IEG/Revision_scoring_as_a_service > > 13. https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:WikiCredit > > 14. https://www.si.umich.edu/events/201409/icos-lecture-aaron-halfaker > > > > -Aaron > > > > On Mon, Oct 20, 2014 at 1:23 AM, Pine W <wiki.p...@gmail.com> wrote: > > Both of the presentations at the October Wikimedia Research Showcase were > fascinating and I encourage everyone to watch them [1]. I would like to > continue to discuss the themes from the showcase about Wikipedia's > adaptability, viability, and diversity. > > Aaron's discussion about Wikipedia's ongoing internal adaptations, and > the slowing of those adaptations, reminded me of this statement from MIT > Technology Review in 2013 (and I recommend reading the whole article [2]): > > "The main source of those problems (with Wikipedia) is not mysterious. The > loose collective running the site today, estimated to be 90 percent male, > operates a crushing bureaucracy with an often abrasive atmosphere that > deters newcomers who might increase partipcipation in Wikipedia and broaden > its coverage." > > I would like to contrast that vision of Wikipedia with the vision > presented by User:CatherineMunro (formatting tweaks by me), which I re-read > when I need encouragement: > > "THIS IS AN ENCYCLOPEDIA > One gateway > to the wide garden of knowledge, > where lies > The deep rock of our past, > in which we must delve > The well of our future, > The clear water > we must leave untainted > for those who come after us, > The fertile earth, > in which truth may grow > in bright places, > tended by many hands, > And the broad fall of sunshine, > warming our first steps > toward knowing > how much we do not know." > > How can we align ouselves less with the former vision and more with the > latter? [3] > > I hope that we can continue to discuss these themes on the Research > mailing list. Please contribute your thoughts and questions there. > > Regards, > > Pine > > [1] youtube.com/watch?v=-We4GZbH3Iw > > [2] > http://www.technologyreview.com/featuredstory/520446/the-decline-of-wikipedia/ > > [3] Lest this at first seem to be impossible, I will borrow and tweak a > quote from from George Bernard Shaw and later used by John F. Kennedy: > "Some people see things as they are and say, 'Why?' Let us dream things > that never were and say, 'Why not?'" > > > > _______________________________________________ > Gendergap mailing list > Gendergap@lists.wikimedia.org > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/gendergap > >
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