subject:"\[Foundation\-l\] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005\?"

- Original Message - 
From: Noein prono...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 1:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 So, Peter, how is this communication failure [1] (and I think the mails
 I attached are a good sample of it, without judging who is right in
 calling the other an idiot) towards idiot editors is different from
 towards idiot readers?

 Apologies if my wording is bad, but as you would said, it's just a
 formal question, the knowledge is the same. :)

How is the problem of making a difficult subject clear different in the case 
of editors than readers?  That's an interesting one.  Good teaching and 
communication is about getting the maximum number of interested people to 
get the intended idea across.  This is very difficult.  Even in the best 
case, I estimate only about 20% of people will understand in any way what 
you are saying.  A simple proof of this is exam results. In any exam (an 
exam being a method of test which aims to assess how well some one has 
understood the teaching) there is a neat dispersion of results.

There is always a bottom 10 percentile of those who sadly don't get it, and 
frankly probably ever aren't going to get it.  I'm a realist.  Now most of 
those bottom 10% realise this, and will go away to study something more 
congenial.  Most of them. There is a tiny tiny fraction of those who don't 
get it, who believe they are fundamentally right, and that the teachers are 
wrong, and that they have been done some injustice, and the world owes them 
something.

Now the problem: in the old days that bottom percentile fraction would 
self-publish some rant or other, or would just go away.  But now there is 
this thing called Wikipedia which is practically inviting them to edit.  It 
says anyone can edit.

I had an experience with such an editor in late 2006.  He fundamentally 
wrecked the Philosophy article 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophyoffset=20061228033655action=history,

drove away a fine bunch of editors, and the article has never really 
recovered since (a group of us act as caretakers but on the principle of 
preventing any change, not improving it. I quote again from Mel Etitis (who 
himself was a casualty of this incident)

Philosophy: I'm a philosopher; why don't I edit the article on my subject? 
Because it's hopeless. I've tried at various times, and each time have given 
up in depressed disgust. Philosophy seems to attract aggressive zealots who 
know a little (often a very little), who lack understanding of key concepts, 
terms, etc., and who attempt to take over the article (and its Talk page) 
with rambling, ground-shifting, often barely comprehensible rants against 
those who disagree with them. Life's too short. I just tell my students and 
anyone else I know not to read the Wikipedia article except for a laugh. 
It's one of those areas where the ochlocratic nature of Wikipedia really 
comes a cropper.

So in summary.  Most people who aren't very good, know they aren't very 
good.  A tiny proportion of those, don't realise this.  Quite a large 
proportion of those end up on Wikipedia.  Some disciplines have more of a 
problem than others. 'Hard sciences' have less of a problem.  Philosophy, 
however, is a crank magnet.

Does that explain the difference you were asking for?  There will sadly 
always be a communication failure.  Some people will never 'get it'. 
However, in the case of readers, you are remote from this and they don't 
give you a problem.  In the case of editors, they are there in your face, 
with their rambling barely comprehensible rants against those who disagree 
with them.  That is the difference, and that is the problem.

Peter 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Noein

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Thank you, your answers reveal quite clearly your vision. (I disagree,
though, but that's not important).
A few comments below...


On 04/10/2010 15:58, Peter Damian wrote:
 How is the problem of making a difficult subject clear different in the case 
 of editors than readers?  That's an interesting one.  Good teaching and 
 communication is about getting the maximum number of interested people to 
 get the intended idea across.  This is very difficult.  Even in the best 
 case, I estimate only about 20% of people will understand in any way what 
 you are saying.  A simple proof of this is exam results. In any exam (an 
 exam being a method of test which aims to assess how well some one has 
 understood the teaching) there is a neat dispersion of results.

 There is always a bottom 10 percentile of those who sadly don't get it, and 
 frankly probably ever aren't going to get it.
I disagree about the never. I think it depends greatly about the
methods and means to reach them.

  I'm a realist. 
Your realism seems strongly context-dependent, with a narrow set of
contexts considered. Your conclusions are probably valid for it, but
you're not talking about the world at large, in my point of view. IMHO
you're talking, maybe without realizing the range of your ideas, about a
specific occurrence of knowledge communication (university teaching
between 1980 and 2010, say) and I don't think this is all there is to
understand about it.

If this discussion was about the contexts of teaching and communicating
instead of the statistical results in already known environments, I
wonder if you would still bear a fatalist (elitist?) point of view about
mankind's intellectual capacity.

Personnaly I think there is only a bottom 10 percentile of those who are
born mentally limited, whatever the education and communication they
receive, they're doomed. The difference with your stats shows what we
CAN do something about.



 Now most of 
 those bottom 10% realise this, and will go away to study something more 
 congenial.  Most of them. There is a tiny tiny fraction of those who don't 
 get it, who believe they are fundamentally right, and that the teachers are 
 wrong, and that they have been done some injustice, and the world owes them 
 something.
 
 Now the problem: in the old days that bottom percentile fraction would 
 self-publish some rant or other, or would just go away.  But now there is 
 this thing called Wikipedia which is practically inviting them to edit.  It 
 says anyone can edit.

It seems that you think that Wikipedia is behaving as a magnet for
obtuse people, for one hand.
On the other hand, you seem to think that what the wiki system does
about the heterogeneity of the editors is filtering out the quality.

This may well be true in some cases. But I think that the opposite can
also happen, and that changes everything. I have the belief that on the
long term, open people and high quality have a higher potential on
Wikipedia, if we aim to set the conditions for their thriving.

Let's go back to your example: I estimate only about 20% of people will
understand in any way what you are saying.
Somewhere, sometime, there is certainly someone that can make 21% of
people understand a specific topic. It's not necessarily an expert,
though he should be able to understand them. So imagine we find him and
make an article out of his teaching. Then we have gain 1% of audience
and consensus of understanding (you may disagree but you understand and
respect what is said).
With this reductio ad minimum I just want to show that levelling up
quality is possible: thus putting the failure on the idiots is not
giving our best shot.


 I had an experience with such an editor in late 2006.  He fundamentally 
 wrecked the Philosophy article 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Philosophyoffset=20061228033655action=history,
  
 drove away a fine bunch of editors, and the article has never really 
 recovered since (a group of us act as caretakers but on the principle of 
 preventing any change, not improving it. I quote again from Mel Etitis (who 
 himself was a casualty of this incident)
 
 Philosophy: I'm a philosopher; why don't I edit the article on my subject? 
 Because it's hopeless. I've tried at various times, and each time have given 
 up in depressed disgust. Philosophy seems to attract aggressive zealots who 
 know a little (often a very little), who lack understanding of key concepts, 
 terms, etc., and who attempt to take over the article (and its Talk page) 
 with rambling, ground-shifting, often barely comprehensible rants against 
 those who disagree with them. Life's too short. I just tell my students and 
 anyone else I know not to read the Wikipedia article except for a laugh. 
 It's one of those areas where the ochlocratic nature of Wikipedia really 
 comes a cropper.

I've read this text like 3 or 4 times in this discussion now. Why are
you repeating this

Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Nathan

To sum up a little bit:

Perhaps because of some popular caricatures of the subject of
philosophy, even those who choose to edit philosophy articles may not
appreciate the actual expertise involved in being a trained
philosopher.  Philosophers, and philosophy in general, are treated
with less respect than other academic subjects and experts.

At the same time some topics that in academic philosophy are very
complex and the subject of a large volume of scholarly inquiry also
appear approachable to lay people. Many are issues that interest or
confront lay people at an early age, and the resulting sense of
familiarity leads non-experts to assume they understand more than they
do.

These two factors combined frustrate actual experts, and cause them to
abandon the project in despair. That leads to the current state of
affairs, where the philosophy related articles are generally of low
quality.

As for solutions -- we've discarded identifying credentialed experts
or privileging expert contributions over others in some systematic
manner. Peter has proposed involving Jimmy in a sort of publicity
campaign, but even if this succeeds in attracting more experts to
Wikipedia it doesn't solve the underlying problems driving experts
away. These same issues, by the way, afflict the more popularly known
subjects in medicine. The approach of the Medicine Project and its
participants has been to keep at it over the course of years, develop
a specific reliable source guideline for their field, work together as
experts to improve and protect quality content, etc. Perhaps the
philosophy experts can learn something from projects with similar
problems that have managed them with some success? Of course we
reliably burn out physicians and researchers editing in the medicine
subject area, so that isn't really a long-term solution either.

Nathan

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Noein prono...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Philosophy: I'm a philosopher; why don't I edit the article on my 
 subject?
 Because it's hopeless. I've tried at various times, and each time have 
 given
 up in depressed disgust. Philosophy seems to attract aggressive zealots 
 who
 know a little (often a very little), who lack understanding of key 
 concepts,
 terms, etc., and who attempt to take over the article (and its Talk page)
 with rambling, ground-shifting, often barely comprehensible rants against
 those who disagree with them. Life's too short. I just tell my students 
 and
 anyone else I know not to read the Wikipedia article except for a laugh.
 It's one of those areas where the ochlocratic nature of Wikipedia really
 comes a cropper.

 I've read this text like 3 or 4 times in this discussion now. Why are
 you repeating this argument? Do you wish specific comments about it?

When someone understands the importance of it, or shows they have taken the 
point on board, then I don't need to repeat it.  Enough said. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread SlimVirgin

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 09:34, Nathan nawr...@gmail.com wrote:
 Perhaps because of some popular caricatures of the subject of
 philosophy, even those who choose to edit philosophy articles may not
 appreciate the actual expertise involved in being a trained
 philosopher.  Philosophers, and philosophy in general, are treated
 with less respect than other academic subjects and experts.

I don't think that happens in the Humanities, but scientists do seem
to ignore that philosophers deal with many of the issues they claim
for themselves.

 As for solutions -- we've discarded identifying credentialed experts
 or privileging expert contributions over others in some systematic
 manner. Peter has proposed involving Jimmy in a sort of publicity
 campaign, but even if this succeeds in attracting more experts to
 Wikipedia it doesn't solve the underlying problems driving experts
 away.

A related issue, Nathan, is that Wikipedians sometimes don't realize
they're editing a philosophy article. I don't want to give examples,
because I don't want to personalize things. But I've had the
experience of trying to use academic philosophy sources in philosophy
articles, or in sections of articles that touch on philosophical
issues, and they've been removed as inappropriate or UNDUE, with
questions on talk about why I think this is a topic in philosophy --
that philosophy is just one POV among many, and not in any sense
authoritative in that area.

I tend to give up in the face of this, rather than argue, because it
feels pointless.

Sarah

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Noein prono...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 4:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 I am sincerely asking you, without insinuation: how do you know you're
 not one of them? What's the difference between the one who knows he
 knows and the one who doesn't know he doesn't know if it's only about
 self-perception (or social perception)?
 Where is the universality of knowledge in this conception if it boils
 down to intimate convictions ?

There are well-established mechanisms for determining this.  I have had many 
papers published, I am currently working collaboratively with another 
academic on a book on medieval philosophy. I have no problem working with 
people who understand the rules, I am told the quality of my work is good. 
There are objective mechanisms for determining whether someone is a crank.

I admit to having a seriously short fuse, and that was my main problem in 
working in Wikipedia.  But that is different from the issue you are talking 
about. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Marc Riddell

 
on 10/4/10 11:06 AM, Noein at prono...@gmail.com wrote:

 Wouldn't self criticizing, openness of mind, intersubjective references,
 shared arguments, and the empathic capacity to understand what the other
 see a better approach to star a discussion?
 
Yes! With this you describe the very essence of collaboration. The facts of
something can have very different appearances depending on the angle of
sight - what's most important is the dialogue those different angles
produce. It's also wise to know that there are things you are never going to
know.

Marc Riddell


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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Nathan

Peter wrote:

2. An initiative to highlight 5 top importance articles and get them to GA
or FA.  There are very few FA status articles, compared to the rest of the
project.

3.  Another initiative to re-classify the top 50 articles in terms of
importance and quality (I looked at this and some are wildly out of line).

endquote

These are obviously good ideas and the sort of effort that most
wikiprojects engage in. There's no question that an active philosophy
wikiproject could pursue this type of initiative and have an impact,
but I thought the premise to this discussion was that the participants
of this particular wikiproject had been driven off and left the 'pedia
without the resources to attempt this sort of thing.

Nathan

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Nathan nawr...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Peter wrote:

 2. An initiative to highlight 5 top importance articles and get them to 
 GA
 or FA.  There are very few FA status articles, compared to the rest of the
 project.

 3.  Another initiative to re-classify the top 50 articles in terms of
 importance and quality (I looked at this and some are wildly out of line).

 endquote

 These are obviously good ideas and the sort of effort that most
 wikiprojects engage in. There's no question that an active philosophy
 wikiproject could pursue this type of initiative and have an impact,
 but I thought the premise to this discussion was that the participants
 of this particular wikiproject had been driven off and left the 'pedia
 without the resources to attempt this sort of thing.

There is a chance that if there were a high-profile effort to acknowledge 
the damage that has been done. One thing that has changed since 2006 is that 
there is a lot more emphasis on citation, and a lot more editors understand 
the distinction between primary and secondary sources and so on. The FA 
process is still being run by good people generally the 'infrastructure' of 
Wikipedia is better than it was then.

I can't speak for the other editors though.  It is rather disappointing when 
Sarah (who is herself an example of a qualified editor who understands 
Wikipedia thoroughly and is a great asset in every way) says I tend to give 
up in the face of this, rather than argue, because it feels pointless.

That sort of makes me want to give up too.  The problem she is talking about 
is real, and I don't have the sense that many people on this forum 
acknowledge it.

Peter

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Noein

-BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE-
Hash: SHA1

On 04/10/2010 17:54, Peter Damian wrote:
 - Original Message - 
 From: Noein prono...@gmail.com
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 4:06 PM
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 I am sincerely asking you, without insinuation: how do you know you're
 not one of them? What's the difference between the one who knows he
 knows and the one who doesn't know he doesn't know if it's only about
 self-perception (or social perception)?
 Where is the universality of knowledge in this conception if it boils
 down to intimate convictions ?

 There are well-established mechanisms for determining this.  I have had many 
 papers published, I am currently working collaboratively with another 
 academic on a book on medieval philosophy. I have no problem working with 
 people who understand the rules, I am told the quality of my work is good. 

This social acceptance (or credentials if you prefer) has a weak
epistemological value.[1] It's only convincing for the people of your
own circle - whether they're right or wrong is of no relevance -. For
people outside your circle, with whom you can't discuss or don't want
to, the arguments for your views are reduced to the authority: authority
of the number of believers, prestige and ranks of the apostles,
influence and mediatisation of the message, power and fearsomeness of
the church you belong to, if you allow me to use an analogy.
This unilateral way of handling down knowledge to the rest of mankind is
a fertile ground for domination about the rights to talk, the ways to
think, about the decisions that are to be taken.
I'm not saying it's currently happening in your circle. I'm saying that
it's an obsolete model for the sharing, free, collaborative, massive
project that is wikipedia, and that you won't be able to force it on
most individuals. Many editors, I believe, claim some sort of
independence of thought, though many don't have the required knowledge
to back it up, and I think this is the correct model from which a
universal knowledge can be build, despite its current limits (giving the
same powers to the ignorant than to the savant). Teach a mind to be
critical and it can learn everything. Teach a mind what you believe and
you just shaped a sheep.

If it's about choosing between expert knowledge and independence of
mind, I personally prefer the latter, because it will slowly but
ultimately lead to the first, while the reciprocal is not guaranteed.
Dealing with humans is much more annoying than with flocks, but that's
the only way forward I can envision.

That's why I believe that Wikipedia is right demanding sources and
objective (not social ones) arguments.

Although there is still some indecision if an article should be about
what people said (a historical and literal approach), what they thought
(a more comprehensive and philosophical one) or what the denoted reality
is (a more scientific and objective one).

Note, Peter, that I am not rejecting the value of your knowledge, your
critics about quality of articles or your proposals. I only disagree
about your model of communication of knowledge for wikipedia.

[1]: following popperian criteria.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread SlimVirgin

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 10:47, Noein prono...@gmail.com wrote:
Teach a mind to be
 critical and it can learn everything. Teach a mind what you believe and
 you just shaped a sheep.

Exactly. Hence the importance of philosophy. When I argue in favour of
philosophy, I'm not arguing in favour of expertise directly, but of
critical thinking, which is not something that all experts are
necessarily good at.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Noein prono...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 5:47 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Note, Peter, that I am not rejecting the value of your knowledge, your
 critics about quality of articles or your proposals. I only disagree
 about your model of communication of knowledge for wikipedia.

I don't care about models of communication, unless they produce results.  If 
the current process were producing articles that belonged to a comprehensive 
and reliable reference work, I don't mind.  I was fascinated with the 
Wikipedia model when it first came out (I have been regularly editing since 
early 2003) and I often defend it to the unbelievers.  It's a model that 
works fantastically well for certain things.

But for other things, it does not produce results.Under any criterion, some 
of the articles in the philosophy section are truly awful.

Also I'm not sure whether you are suggesting that the academic criterion 
for quality is somehow flawed, and that if only people like me would learn 
to put on the right spectacles, we would see that they are in fact good? Or 
not?  Well in any case, Wikipedia's own grading system suggests there is a 
problem.  This is the 3rd time I have posted this.

http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/list2.fcgi?run=yesprojecta=Philosophynamespace=0pagename=quality=importance=score=limit=100offset=1sorta=Importancesortb=Quality

I would quarrel with the number of 'top' importance articles.  I think the 
number should be more like 100, in line with other disciplines where 
Wikipedia is 'good'.  But I generally agree with the quality assessment. 
The depressing fact is that articles like 'ancient philosophy' or 
'pre-socratic philosophy' are start-class, the article about the subject 
itself is 'C' as is the article about one of the greatest philosophers of 
the tradition (Plato).

This social acceptance (or credentials if you prefer) has a weak 
epistemological value.[1] It's only convincing for the people of your own 
circle - whether they're right or wrong is of no relevance

Citation please.  All my experience suggests that specialists write better 
articles than non-specialists.  Or to qualify: the typical writer of a 
'good' article on Wikipedia is someone who has formal training in the 
subject but somehow missed getting an academic post.  Or who is a 
postgraduate student looking to sharpen up their writing skills.  The few 
'good' philosophy articles were written by User:Lacatosias, who falls 
exactly into that category.

Also it's not credentials I look for. I despise credentials.  I look for a 
clear writing style, elegance and economy of expression, logical and 
evidenced support of views.  This is not a credentialled or elitist thing. 
Anyone can develop these skills. But typically the process of natural 
selection means that formally-trained editors are more likely to have these 
skills than not.

In summary, the objective of the project is to produce a reliable and 
comprehensive reference source.  Everything else should be subordinate to 
that goal.  Wikipedia is not some gigantic social engineering project. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Henning Schlottmann

On 03.10.2010 17:03, geni wrote:

 So I can run a 30 second search on the british library catalogue than
 go back to doing what I was going to do all along. Great use of my
 time.

Wikipedia is about people with knowledge collaborating to add their part
to the project. This way Wikipedia is trying to become a repository of
the sum of all knowledge. So only those who have verifiable knowledge
about a subject should become authors and write about that subject.
Those who do not have knowledge should restrict themselves to editorial
tasks such as copy editing, the category tree, vandal fighting or whatever.

Our usual terms are not really helpful for understanding the difference.
Maybe we should stop calling authors editors and distinguish between
those edits that add content and those that process preexisting content.

The point is verifiable knowledge. Unless you have respectable sources,
do not become an author. We don't care if you use google books, your
local library, a large research library, your own bookshelf, respectable
websites, scientific or government databases, the online edition of
respected newspapers, whatever.

But those who don't have verifiable knowledge, should not write for
Wikipedia. Their contribution is at best useless, at worse they use up
time and energy of those who could make better use of their time and
energy by writing content.

The encyclopedia that anyone can edit - Everyone may, but not everyone
can. BTW: The German language Wikipedia has this banner on top of the
main page:

Willkommen bei Wikipedia

Wikipedia ist ein Projekt zum Aufbau einer Enzyklopädie aus freien
Inhalten in allen Sprachen der Welt. Jeder kann mit seinem Wissen
beitragen. Seit Mai 2001 sind so 1.130.326 Artikel in deutscher Sprache
entstanden. Gute Autorinnen und Autoren sind stets willkommen.

Welcome to Wikipedia

Wikipedia is a project to create an encyclopedia of free content in all
the languages of the world. Everyone can contribute with his knowledge.
Since Mai 2001 1.130.326 articles in German language were created this
way. Good authors are always welcome.

Ciao Henning


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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread geni

On 4 October 2010 19:31, Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote:
 On 03.10.2010 17:03, geni wrote:

 So I can run a 30 second search on the british library catalogue than
 go back to doing what I was going to do all along. Great use of my
 time.

 Wikipedia is about people with knowledge collaborating to add their part
 to the project. This way Wikipedia is trying to become a repository of
 the sum of all knowledge. So only those who have verifiable knowledge
 about a subject should become authors and write about that subject.
 Those who do not have knowledge should restrict themselves to editorial
 tasks such as copy editing, the category tree, vandal fighting or whatever.

 Our usual terms are not really helpful for understanding the difference.
 Maybe we should stop calling authors editors and distinguish between
 those edits that add content and those that process preexisting content.

 The point is verifiable knowledge. Unless you have respectable sources,
 do not become an author. We don't care if you use google books, your
 local library, a large research library, your own bookshelf, respectable
 websites, scientific or government databases, the online edition of
 respected newspapers, whatever.

 But those who don't have verifiable knowledge, should not write for
 Wikipedia. Their contribution is at best useless, at worse they use up
 time and energy of those who could make better use of their time and
 energy by writing content.

Can I suggest you stick to trying this argument on new users?

The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
article:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413

-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread David Gerard

On 4 October 2010 19:43, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote:

 The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
 on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
 in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
 controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
 article:
 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413


This is true - it took until 2005 even to get people to accept the
{[unreferenced}} tag as being a good idea.

I believe we were #20 on Alexa by the end of 2005.

Not that there's anything wrong with references. But yes, claiming
that Wikipedia was built on referenced information is simply a
factually inaccurate claim, and you should not make it.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread Henning Schlottmann

On 04.10.2010 20:43, geni wrote:
 On 4 October 2010 19:31, Henning Schlottmann h.schlottm...@gmx.net wrote:
 But those who don't have verifiable knowledge, should not write for
 Wikipedia. Their contribution is at best useless, at worse they use up
 time and energy of those who could make better use of their time and
 energy by writing content.
 
 The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
 on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
 in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
 controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
 article:
 
 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413

This time has been over long ago. The turning point was the Seigenthaler
affair. It took some time after that until is disseminated into the
heart of the project. But now every author, new or old has to know that
only verifiable content is welcome and everything else is worthless or
even counter productive because it binds time and energy by others.
People without access to verifiable knowledge are not welcome as
authors. And haven't been for years now.

Ciao Henning


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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread SlimVirgin

 On 04.10.2010 20:43, geni wrote:
 The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
 on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
 in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
 controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
 article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413

People were regularly insisting on references when I started editing
in November 2004. Here's Raul's FA criteria in April 2004 that shows
sources were required.
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Wikipedia:Featured_article_criteriaoldid=4077849

The difference was that we didn't have inline citations, so people
would add a list of refs at the end of the article, and it was hard to
see what supported which point.

Sarah

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread teun spaans

Imho the problem is much deeper than citing sources or lack of them.

The wikipedian may cite newspaper X, or even researchpaper Y, but
because he has limited inderstanding and/or knowledge about the field,
he may misinterpret the source or judge its weight in much more
absolute terms than the real expert does.

Errors may be very subtle. I have seen an edit war between a
wikipedian and an expert, where the admin protected the incorrect
version of the wikipedian against the changes made by the expert.
Motive of the admin: the changes mthis guy makes are not in wikipedia
style. And if he thinks there are any errors  he should point them
out. The expert was fed up with the situation.

Sad but true.

Having some basic knowledge of the subject, I was able to spot two of
the five errors introduced by rewriting the text so that it is easier
to read, the other three are probably still there.

teun spaans

On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 9:14 PM,  wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 In a message dated 9/20/2010 12:02:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time,
 peter.dam...@btinternet.com writes:


 In my experience
 the problem of humanities in Wikipedia is that the methods and training of

 the 'experts' is so fundamentally different from that of 'Wikipedians'
 (who
 by and large have no training at all) that disputes nearly always turn
 ugly. 


 You are again stating the problem as expert vs pedestrian (untrained at
 least).

 However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an expert because
 you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an expert.
 When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other readers
 find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.

 However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make
 unchallengeable claims without sources.

 If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is any
 different than being any editor at all.

 What is the actual procedure by which, when an expert edits, we see
 something different than when anyone edits.

 I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to
 our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that
 specific field.

 The problem comes, imho, when experts add claims that are unsourced, and
 when challenged on them, get uppity about it.

 The issue is not uncited claims, or challenged claims.  All of our articles
 have uncited claims and many have challenged and yet-unfulfilled claims.
 The issue is how you are proposing these should be treated differently if the
 claim comes from an expert versus a non-expert, isn't it?

 So address that.

 Will Johnson
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread wiki-list

On 04/10/2010 19:43, geni wrote:

 The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
 on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
 in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
 controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
 article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413


Have you looked at the current version of that page? Every sentence has 
at least one ref, it looks like a spider has fallen into an ink well and 
then run backwards and forwards across the page. Typographically the 
result is a mess and almost unreadable with great gaps between one word 
and the next. I'd be amazed if there weren't less than a dozen sources 
that cover the entire sorry affair and each paragraph covered by 1 
reference. 100 different references smacks of OCD.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-04 Thread John Vandenberg

On Tue, Oct 5, 2010 at 11:17 AM,  wiki-l...@phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
 On 04/10/2010 19:43, geni wrote:

 The Wikipedia that went from nothing to top ten site was never built
 on  verifiable knowledge. It was built on what people happened to have
 in their heads. The whole citation thing outside the more
 controversial areas came later. Don't believe me? This was a featured
 article:

 http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Murder_of_James_Bulgeroldid=3191413


 Have you looked at the current version of that page? Every sentence has
 at least one ref, it looks like a spider has fallen into an ink well and
 then run backwards and forwards across the page. Typographically the
 result is a mess and almost unreadable with great gaps between one word
 and the next. I'd be amazed if there weren't less than a dozen sources
 that cover the entire sorry affair and each paragraph covered by 1
 reference. 100 different references smacks of OCD.

Inline references can be very distracting when reading.  Here is a quick fix

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:John_Vandenberg/vector.css

The IE workaround filter: alpha(opacity=50); isn't working for me.

--
John Vandenberg

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread Nikola Smolenski

Дана Saturday 02 October 2010 23:51:22 David Gerard написа:
 On 2 October 2010 22:44, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
  The problem is how to avoid making rules against stupidity. Because
  you can't actually outlaw stupid. Experts already complain about
  uncitability. I suppose we could advise experts on how to use citation
  as a debating tactic.

 Experts complain about uncitability - they complain that common
 knowledge in the field doesn't actually make it into journal articles
 or textbooks, but is stuff that everyone knows.

Perhaps what is needed then is a procedure for experts to cite such common 
knowledge in the field. I don't have a good idea on how exactly to do that 
however.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread David Goodman

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:30 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net wrote:
 on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvir...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.

 David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be
 happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes
 they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,

 snip

 Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
 years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
 subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too
 if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.

 Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach
 someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they
 think they already know.


Sure you can, if you can just get their attention. This is the basic
method behind good instructional and popular writing, as well as such
specific genres as biography. You need to provide an especially
attractive format and very  clear presentation in a manner that
implies that the presentation is expected to be entertaining, to get
people started reading or listening, and then  to keep them going
provide intrinsically interesting material and clear dramatic verbal
and pictorial illustration,  and write or speak in language and manner
that is at the right level of sophistication--a slightly better
informed friend is usually the right level, and aim at an overall
effect when finished that w;il give people a feeling of satisfaction
and increased confidence.

It's not easy. Few people can do this really well, and they are only
occasionally professional academics. Good advertising people can do
it; good journalists can do it; masters of popular non-fiction can do
it; some fiction writers can even do it.  It may be beyond practical
levels of community participation to expect it in Wikipedia, at least
on a routine basis. (Though we do have one additional factor--the
attractive browsing effect. )

People do change their mind. People can be persuaded.  But there are
almost no articles in Wikipedia written well enough to  could persuade
people to pay attention to the arguments. Probably that should not be
our goal. for I don't think we can accomplish it by an assortment of
amateurs.  Probably our basic principle is right:aim for NPOV, for
those people who want it. We're always going to be dull reading--even
the best professional encyclopedias usually have been.   Anything more
than that belongs in other media.

-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread wiki-list

On 03/10/2010 07:01, Nikola Smolenski wrote:
Дана Saturday 02 October 2010 23:51:22 David Gerard написа:
On 2 October 2010 22:44, David Gerarddger...@gmail.com wrote:
The problem is how to avoid making rules against stupidity. Because
you can't actually outlaw stupid. Experts already complain about
uncitability. I suppose we could advise experts on how to use citation
as a debating tactic.

Experts complain about uncitability - they complain that common
knowledge in the field doesn't actually make it into journal articles
or textbooks, but is stuff that everyone knows.

Perhaps what is needed then is a procedure for experts to cite such common
knowledge in the field. I don't have a good idea on how exactly to do that
however.

The main problem is that citations are overwhelmingly needed in
wikipedia precisely because there is no control over the content, and
any old crap can get added:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cydiff=200330985oldid=200327168

most of the above has been removed, but the first part remains The
French even went as far as to leave behind the pavises. They didn't
'leave them behind' the pavises were on the road from Abbeville along
with the rest of the straggling French Army.

later this bit of tosh got added:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cydiff=207979441oldid=207735009

which eventually gets removed by:

http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Battle_of_Cr%C3%A9cydiff=280708124oldid=280707597

However, now the sense of what Philip wanted is reversed. So which is
correct; was Philip in favour of attacking or not? Jonathan Sumption
says in the first part of his three part History that the seasoned
veterans wanted to wait, but that others wanted to attack. That Philip
sided with the opinion to attack as he could not afford the humiliation,
of having a powerful army in sight of an English army, for a third time,
and not engaging in battle.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread Marc Riddell


 on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvir...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.
 
 David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be
 happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes
 they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,
 
 snip
 
 Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
 years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
 subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too
 if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.

 On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:30 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net
 wrote:
 
 Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach
 someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they
 think they already know.
 
on 10/3/10 4:49 AM, David Goodman at dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote:
 
 Sure you can, if you can just get their attention. This is the basic
 method behind good instructional and popular writing, as well as such
 specific genres as biography. You need to provide an especially
 attractive format and very  clear presentation in a manner that
 implies that the presentation is expected to be entertaining, to get
 people started reading or listening, and then  to keep them going
 provide intrinsically interesting material and clear dramatic verbal
 and pictorial illustration,  and write or speak in language and manner
 that is at the right level of sophistication--a slightly better
 informed friend is usually the right level, and aim at an overall
 effect when finished that w;il give people a feeling of satisfaction
 and increased confidence.
 
 It's not easy. Few people can do this really well, and they are only
 occasionally professional academics. Good advertising people can do
 it; good journalists can do it; masters of popular non-fiction can do
 it; some fiction writers can even do it.  It may be beyond practical
 levels of community participation to expect it in Wikipedia, at least
 on a routine basis. (Though we do have one additional factor--the
 attractive browsing effect. )
 
 People do change their mind. People can be persuaded.  But there are
 almost no articles in Wikipedia written well enough to  could persuade
 people to pay attention to the arguments. Probably that should not be
 our goal. for I don't think we can accomplish it by an assortment of
 amateurs.  Probably our basic principle is right:aim for NPOV, for
 those people who want it. We're always going to be dull reading--even
 the best professional encyclopedias usually have been.   Anything more
 than that belongs in other media.

Much of what you say here is true, David. However, the task becomes an
arduous one when the students rule the classroom. The prevailing culture in
Wikipedia, whose dogma seems to be, this is our encyclopedia, and no
'expert' is going to tell us what to do, may seem liberating to some, but
is preventing the Project from being the truly collaborative one it has the
potential to be.

Marc Riddell


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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 So 30 seconds British library catalog search then forget
 about it.
  
 Which means that unless you happen to live with a library
 that
 includes a bunch of naval history or are prepared to spend
 a non
 trivial amount of money you can't edit say [[HMS Argus
 (I49)]] (which
 cites Warship 1994). You appear to be missing the point
 that wikipedia
 is a collaboration.



Well, it should be *informed* collaboration. 

Of course I am not saying that you are not allowed to edit [[HMS Argus (I49)]] 
unless you have read Warship 1994. If that book is not available to you, but 
you have a different source, then naturally it's absolutely fine for you to 
jump in and add content based on that source.

The point I am making is that you should *look* for scholarly sources, because 
they are likely to be the most valuable. 

I don't use a library either. But I regularly use google books, which has 
previews of millions of books. 

For example, you can look for university press books that have canal(s) in 
the title like so: 

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=ensafe=offtbs=bks:1q=canal+intitle:canal+OR+intitle:canals+inpublisher:universityaq=faqi=aql=oq=gs_rfai=

Then click on a book and read it online. 

There is a utility that converts google books URLs into a readily formatted 
Wikipedia reference:

http://reftag.appspot.com/?book_url=dateformat=dmy

When a page is missing in the google preview, you can sometimes find it in the 
amazon preview. And you can use google scholar to see whether a book is well 
cited.

I have a subscription to Questia ($50 a year), which has lots of humanities 
stuff -- books, journals, some press. You can read the complete books online. 
And sometimes, of course, I end up buying books.

Your Warship book has snippet view in google books: 

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1id=z2AqAQAAIAAJdq=isbn:0851776302q=Argus#search_anchor

This means that even though you can't see complete pages, google has the 
complete content stored, and with a little trickery you can get to text beyond 
the snippets:

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1tbo=1q=%22did,+might+well+have+become+a+very+famous+ship%22btnG=Search+Books

The minimum requirement for content contributions in Wikipedia is, and always 
has been, that you should have read a reliable source.


Andreas



  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

  Experts complain about uncitability - they complain
 that common
  knowledge in the field doesn't actually make it into
 journal articles
  or textbooks, but is stuff that everyone knows.


I have a hard time believing that it should be impossible to find a source 
which states something that everyone knows. If it's assumed prior knowledge 
in journal articles, it should still be possible to find it in basic 
introductions to the field. 

Example?

A.


  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread David Gerard

On 3 October 2010 14:09, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I have a hard time believing that it should be impossible to find a source 
 which states something that everyone knows. If it's assumed prior knowledge 
 in journal articles, it should still be possible to find it in basic 
 introductions to the field.
 Example?


I too have trouble actually getting examples when I ask. But that's a
complaint I've heard from more than one person. So I'm presuming
there's something to it.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Marc Riddell michaeldavi...@comcast.net
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 1:04 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Much of what you say here is true, David. However, the task becomes an
 arduous one when the students rule the classroom. The prevailing culture 
 in
 Wikipedia, whose dogma seems to be, this is our encyclopedia, and no
 'expert' is going to tell us what to do, may seem liberating to some, but
 is preventing the Project from being the truly collaborative one it has 
 the
 potential to be.

This is so very very true.  And you only have to lose it your cool once or 
twice, and you are out with a block.

Using my earlier 'gardening' analogy I am going to make some suggestions 
over the coming week.  The analogy was a garden where the good plants are 
struggling to grow, and the place is becoming infested with weeds.  Rather 
than blaming the plants for not growing, a good gardener would apply small 
changes to help the good plants.  For example, trim back a tree that was 
causing shade.  Apply fertiliser (organic of course) in appropriate places. 
Perhaps (but this may not be neceessary) pull up a few weeds.  My experience 
of gardens is that small changes to the microclimate can make big positive 
changes to the garden.

Here are some initial ideas - all of them small incremental ones that would 
involve little or no change to Wikipedia policy or governance.

1.  Get someone from WMF or even Jimbo to make a keynote statement about 
philosophy - perhaps alluding to the problematic state of many of the 
articles, and the need for editors to collaborate together and help. 
Something is needed to improve the morale of the remaining editors there.

2. An initiative to highlight 5 top importance articles and get them to GA 
or FA.  There are very few FA status articles, compared to the rest of the 
project.

3.  Another initiative to re-classify the top 50 articles in terms of 
importance and quality (I looked at this and some are wildly out of line).

More ideas next week.  Any ideas from the others here?

Peter

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 9:09 AM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 I have a hard time believing that it should be impossible to find a source 
 which states
 something that everyone knows. If it's assumed prior knowledge in journal 
 articles, it
 should still be possible to find it in basic introductions to the field.

Maybe, but so what?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 07:15, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
 On 3 October 2010 14:09, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I have a hard time believing that it should be impossible to find a source 
 which states something that everyone knows. If it's assumed prior 
 knowledge in journal articles, it should still be possible to find it in 
 basic introductions to the field.
 Example?


 I too have trouble actually getting examples when I ask. But that's a
 complaint I've heard from more than one person. So I'm presuming
 there's something to it.

If I were going to write an article about truth, I know which
philosophers and arguments it would be important to mention. I'd be
surprised if that list is in a book anywhere, and it takes years to
learn it.

Expertise isn't about citing sources. It's about knowing which sources
to cite. And this is something that specialists may not get right
either, because they have to keep themselves up to date, which isn't
easy.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/3/2010 5:04:54 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
michaeldavi...@comcast.net writes:


 Much of what you say here is true, David. However, the task becomes an
 arduous one when the students rule the classroom. The prevailing culture 
 in
 Wikipedia, whose dogma seems to be, this is our encyclopedia, and no
 'expert' is going to tell us what to do, may seem liberating to some, but
 is preventing the Project from being the truly collaborative one it has 
 the
 potential to be. 

It was never intended however to be a collaboration amongst experts, but 
rather an encyclopedia built *by* the masses, for the masses.  That was the 
intent.  In this, it has succeeded, for better or worse.

It's not the point that no expert is going to tell us what to do.  It's 
the point that some experts not all or them, nor even most of them, do not 
want to be challenged on their own dogma or as slim put it their canon.  
They don't want students who are too uppity, but prefer to lecture down from 
the position to which they think they are entitled.

In the project however, we judge you, not based upon your credential, but 
rather based upon your argument and presentation.  If you don't want to give 
an argument, to support your view, then you eventually won't be judged well. 
 Or at least that's the theory.  If a student asks Why and you respond 
Because I said so, exactly what sort of Expert are you?  Not a very good 
one is my response.

W
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 10:53 AM,  wjhon...@aol.com wrote:
 In the project however, we judge you, not based upon your credential, but
 rather based upon your argument and presentation.  If you don't want to give
 an argument, to support your view, then you eventually won't be judged well.
  Or at least that's the theory.  If a student asks Why and you respond
 Because I said so, exactly what sort of Expert are you?  Not a very good
 one is my response.

Well, no, but that's why upper level classes tend to have prerequisites.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread geni

On 3 October 2010 13:43, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
So 30 seconds British library catalog search then forget
about it.

Which means that unless you happen to live with a library
that
includes a bunch of naval history or are prepared to spend
a non
trivial amount of money you can't edit say [[HMS Argus
(I49)]] (which
cites Warship 1994). You appear to be missing the point
that wikipedia
is a collaboration.

Well, it should be *informed* collaboration.

Of course I am not saying that you are not allowed to edit [[HMS Argus
(I49)]] unless you have read Warship 1994. If that book is not available
to you, but you have a different source, then naturally it's absolutely fine
for you to jump in and add content based on that source.

The point I am making is that you should *look* for scholarly sources,
because they are likely to be the most valuable.

So I can run a 30 second search on the british library catalogue than
go back to doing what I was going to do all along. Great use of my
time.

I don't use a library either. But I regularly use google books, which has
previews of millions of books.

For example, you can look for university press books that have canal(s) in
the title like so:

http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=ensafe=offtbs=bks:1q=canal+intitle:canal+OR+intitle:canals+inpublisher:universityaq=faqi=aql=oq=gs_rfai=

Then click on a book and read it online.

Great except it all the results only cover a single nation's canals
and building up a knowledge base like that simply isn't viable
timewise. Have you any idea how long it would take to read 47K books?
Strangely none of which are the book most cited in the current
article.

There is a utility that converts google books URLs into a readily formatted
Wikipedia reference:

http://reftag.appspot.com/?book_url=dateformat=dmy

When a page is missing in the google preview, you can sometimes find it in
the amazon preview. And you can use google scholar to see whether a book is
well cited.

I have a subscription to Questia ($50 a year), which has lots of humanities
stuff -- books, journals, some press. You can read the complete books online.
And sometimes, of course, I end up buying books.

Your Warship book has snippet view in google books:

http://books.google.com/books?cd=1id=z2AqAQAAIAAJdq=isbn:0851776302q=Argus#search_anchor

This means that even though you can't see complete pages, google has the
complete content stored, and with a little trickery you can get to text
beyond the snippets:

http://www.google.com/search?tbs=bks:1tbo=1q=%22did,+might+well+have+become+a+very+famous+ship%22btnG=Search+Books

The minimum requirement for content contributions in Wikipedia is, and always
has been, that you should have read a reliable source.

Which has nothing to do with your original position. Remember you
wanted people to review the literature.

--
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 3:53 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
 It was never intended however to be a collaboration amongst experts, but
 rather an encyclopedia built *by* the masses, for the masses.  That was 
 the
 intent.  In this, it has succeeded, for better or worse.

But in certain areas it has not succeeded at all - philosophy in particular, 
and to a certain extent the humanities.  The question is why is that so.  A 
very plausible explanation is the one that Sarah has so cogently explained.

Also, you are wrong about the intention.  The purpose is to be a 
comprehensive and reliable reference source, bringing the sum of all human 
knowledge to every person on the planet.  It is not some gigantic social 
levelling scheme, as you seem to be implying.

Will, can you try and focus on the three questions and keep this on-topic.

1.  Is there a quality problem in certain areas.  Yes or no?

2.  If there is a problem, are there any underlying or systematic reasons?

3. If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can they easily be 
addressed?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/3/2010 8:14:18 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peter.dam...@btinternet.com writes:


 Will, can you try and focus on the three questions and keep this 
 on-topic.
 
 1.  Is there a quality problem in certain areas.  Yes or no?
 
 2.  If there is a problem, are there any underlying or systematic reasons?
 
 3. If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can they easily be 
 addressed?



1.  One of the foundational works that was used to create Wikipedia was the 
1911 EB.  Wherever that was flawed, we started out flawed.  I'm sure there 
are some who would say that this never occurred, because they can't remember 
that far back.  However should anyone wish to add any article from the 
1911EB, say on Truth or Avicenna or even to incorporate or restructure such an 
article based on that, they are quite free to so do.

2. Wikipedia has grown like a crystal grows in the midst of impurities.  
There are impurities perhaps at the heart of the crystal, and it's also not 
uniform and spherical.  When I do a search on some medieval person (my area on 
concentration) of import, I expect more often than not, to find.. 
something.  In almost every single case, almost every, the article is lopsided, 
unsupported, has wild claims and specific years which we do not in fact know... 
I 
don't blame the project for these flaws, I see them as a way to contribute. 
 I remember with what we started.

3. I would suggest Peter, should you think it possible, to start a new 
project which is devoted to Philosophy or even to the Humanities, which I think 
is too broad personally, and build it up and use it as a basis from which 
others can make additions to Wikipedia.  That's what I do.  If I encounter, as 
I sometimes do, an article that is so utterly lacking, that I cannot simply 
make a few changes to it, I start fresh, from primary and secondary sources 
and built my own article, in one of my own projects.  Then sometimes, when 
I'm satisfied at the thing of great beauty I've created, I will adds bits of 
it back to Wikipedia.

Flaws in Wikipedia are areas of opportunity for other projects to fill.  At 
the present time.  Wikipedia is not the sole project which exists in this 
area.

W
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 09:14, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
1. Is there a quality problem in certain areas. Yes or no?

2. If there is a problem, are there any underlying or systematic reasons?

3. If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can they easily be
addressed?

There was an adjournment debate in the House of Commons in 1999 about
the importance of philosophy in education, in case anyone's interested
in reading it.
http://www.parliament.the-stationery-office.co.uk/pa/cm199899/cmhansrd/vo990701/debtext/90701-33.htm

The MP who raised it, a former academic philosopher, touches on some
of the issues we've raised here. Because children routinely ask
themselves philosophical questions -- What is right and wrong? Why
should I obey the law? -- adults tend to think they know the answers,
or that they''re questions without answers, or that as soon as you
identify something as a philosophical issue, you're saying it's a
waste of time.

This is absolutely the attitude I've encountered on Wikipedia, where
everyone thinks that if you know how to ask what is truth? you're
also able to have a go at answering it. But that's the basic error
right there, and it has driven off several of the specialists who
might have written some good articles on those issues. And it's not
only in article space that academic philosophers would be able to help
improve things.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 4:33 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 1.  One of the foundational works that was used to create Wikipedia was 
 the
 1911 EB.  Wherever that was flawed, we started out flawed.  I'm sure there
 are some who would say that this never occurred, because they can't 
 remember
 that far back.  However should anyone wish to add any article from the
 1911EB, say on Truth or Avicenna or even to incorporate or restructure 
 such an
 article based on that, they are quite free to so do.

None of the problem articles incorporate much text from the Britannica 1911. 
Some of the biography problem articles have large bleeding chunks taken from 
the Catholic Encyclopedia.  This is out of date and also incorporates an 
obvious POV that is out of place with modern scholarship.

2... In almost every single case, almost every, the article is lopsided,
 unsupported, has wild claims and specific years which we do not in fact 
 know... I
 don't blame the project for these flaws, I see them as a way to 
 contribute.
 I remember with what we started.

That is an answer to question 1, not question 2.  Question 1: are there any 
problems.

Question 2: If there is a problem, are there any underlying or systematic 
reasons?  You seem to imply there are problems.  OK, are there any 
systematic reasons?  (Or is it just random, that the humanities happens by 
chance to be one of those areas that have problems?).  Do you agree with the 
analysis put forward by Sarah, namely that it is the problem of persistent, 
aggressive editors who know very little but believe they are experts?  If 
not, give evidence that these are not a problem.

Try and address these questions in a systematic and logical fashion.

 3. I would suggest Peter, should you think it possible, to start a new
 project which is devoted to Philosophy or even to the Humanities, which I 
 think
 is too broad personally, and build it up and use it as a basis from which
 others can make additions to Wikipedia.  That's what I do.  If I 
 encounter, as
 I sometimes do, an article that is so utterly lacking, that I cannot 
 simply
 make a few changes to it, I start fresh, from primary and secondary 
 sources
 and built my own article, in one of my own projects.  Then sometimes, when
 I'm satisfied at the thing of great beauty I've created, I will adds bits 
 of
 it back to Wikipedia.

Question 3 was: If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can they 
easily be
addressed?

Since you haven't said whether there are any underlying or systematic 
reasons, I don't see how you can answer question 3.  Or were these 3 answers 
of your own that occurred to you at random and are unrelated to my 3 
questions?

Peter

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 11:14 AM, Peter Damian
peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 But in certain areas it has not succeeded at all - philosophy in particular,
 and to a certain extent the humanities.  The question is why is that so.

The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not
truth—whether readers can check that material in Wikipedia has already
been published by a reliable source, not whether editors think it is
true.

In philosophy, as well as in the humanities, there's a lot of
information which is verifiable but not true (unless you're going to
define a reliable source as a source which doesn't contain false
information, anyway).

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: SlimVirgin slimvir...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 4:40 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

This is absolutely the attitude I've encountered on Wikipedia, where
everyone thinks that if you know how to ask what is truth? you're
also able to have a go at answering it. But that's the basic error
right there, and it has driven off several of the specialists who
might have written some good articles on those issues. And it's not
only in article space that academic philosophers would be able to help
improve things.

That's an answer to question 2 (are there any systematic reasons).  But what 
about question 3?  If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can 
they easily be
addressed?

Are there any small changes to the philosophy microclimate that would 
attract the plants back?

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 09:47, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:

 - Original Message -
 From: SlimVirgin slimvir...@gmail.com
 To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
 Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 4:40 PM
 Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

This is absolutely the attitude I've encountered on Wikipedia, where
everyone thinks that if you know how to ask what is truth? you're
also able to have a go at answering it. But that's the basic error
right there, and it has driven off several of the specialists who
might have written some good articles on those issues. And it's not
only in article space that academic philosophers would be able to help
improve things.

 That's an answer to question 2 (are there any systematic reasons).  But what
 about question 3?  If there are any underlying or systematic reasons, can
 they easily be
 addressed?

 Are there any small changes to the philosophy microclimate that would
 attract the plants back?

I can think of a very labour-intensive change -- a project to raise
awareness of the importance of philosophy, and what constitutes a
philosophical issue, and that there are academic sources devoted to
dealing with them. But that's a project that would need academic
philosophers to create it. And it would be a contentious project at
times, because we'd be trying to claim back certain topics from other
hands -- from scientists, for example.

How do we attract the philosophers back once they've gone almost
entirely? I don't know.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: SlimVirgin slimvir...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 4:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

I can think of a very labour-intensive change -- a project to raise
awareness of the importance of philosophy, and what constitutes a
philosophical issue, and that there are academic sources devoted to
dealing with them. But that's a project that would need academic
philosophers to create it. And it would be a contentious project at
times, because we'd be trying to claim back certain topics from other
hands -- from scientists, for example.

How do we attract the philosophers back once they've gone almost
entirely? I don't know.

How about some of the ideas I suggested earlier?  Starting with a keynote 
statement from Jimbo, followed by some initiatives?  Preferably in the 
media, and preferably with some modest support from WMF.  Views? 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Peter Damian
peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 I gave a list of problematic articles.  Here is
 one of them again.

 http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/08/argumentum-ad-baculum.html

I really can't comment on that one without first learning more about
argumentum ad baculum (I agree with you that the Wikipedia article is
not a good one at presenting it - the examples of fallacies and the
example of a non-fallacy are not even in the same form).  The link you
provided just says Wikipedia is wrong, but it doesn't really explain
why.  Yes, there is an implicit step missing from the argument that
you should not do that which you do not want to do, but that's not
the same as saying the argument is fallacious.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 10:58, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:
 No, built by the masses was not the intent. The goal was to build an
 encyclopedia. It turns out the masses are fantastically useful in
 this, but claiming that was a goal is simply factually inaccurate. So
 I must say, in response to this remarkable claim: citation needed.


When you open it for editing by anyone, and you're making the sum of
human knowledge available to all, that's by the people for the people.

I strongly support that. I wouldn't want to see it expert-led. My only
gripe is that some specialist areas are respected, and others not.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: Anthony wikim...@inbox.org
To: Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 5:06 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

In my experience by verifiability, Wikipedians mean published
somewhere, not verifiably true.

No the published source must be reliable as well. Otherwise published
sources on holocaust denial could be cited as if factually true (or rather,
verifiable) in Wikipedia.

Geni:
However it fundamentally fails to explain why other areas of the 
humanities such as those covered by
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Maritime_warfare_task_force/Operation_Majestic_Titan

This is not a humanities subject, nor does it have the problem that Sarah
has been talking about, which is a horde of editors without any training in
the subject being aggressively stupid, to use David's happy phrase.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
 Therefore you should not (drink and) drive.

 Is that one also fallacious?  It's still missing a step you should
 not cause yourself to get into a car accident.  But then, it also is
 different in that there is no third party imposing a punishment.

As you say it is missing a step.

If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
*** You should not run the risk of getting in a car accident
Therefore you should not (drink and) drive.

You need to match 'ought to' or 'should', or equivalent meaning word in the 
minor premiss in order to be valid.

Note I put 'run the risk of' to cover your 'might'.Better still would be

If you (drink and) drive you run the risk of getting in a car accident
You should not run the risk of getting in a car accident
Therefore you should not (drink and) drive.

You need to match the pattern of

If A then B
B should not happen
Therefore A should not happen

The logic is quite simple.  Suppose A happens. Then from the major, B will 
happen.  But from the minor, B should not happen.  Thus if A happens, 
something will happen that should not happen.  Therefore A should not 
happen.


- Original Message - 
From: Anthony wikim...@inbox.org
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 5:18 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?


 On Sun, Oct 3, 2010 at 11:52 AM, Peter Damian
 peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/08/argumentum-ad-baculum.html

 Also, what do you think of the previous example of a non-fallacious 
 argument:

 If you (drink and) drive you might get in a car accident.
 Therefore you should not (drink and) drive.

 Is that one also fallacious?  It's still missing a step you should
 not cause yourself to get into a car accident.  But then, it also is
 different in that there is no third party imposing a punishment.

 I dunno, I think the whole article [[argumentum ad baculum]] is just
 piss poor in general.

 If you are not a christian, God will torture you forever.  Therefore,
 Christianity is correct.

 Okay, that I can see as a fallacy.  Whether or not that's what meant
 by argumentum ad baculum, I don't yet know (couldn't find a good
 source for what it means).

 Would this be a good example of argumentum ad baculum:

 If you think drinking and driving is okay, then you will get into a
 car accident and die.  Therefore drinking and driving is not okay.
 (I note that you should not get into a car accident and die is still
 left as an implicit assumption.)

 If x accepts P as true, then Q. is not the same as If P, then Q.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

I'm sorry, but I'm afraid I can't continue this discussion within the
bounds of the rules of this mailing list.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread geni

On 3 October 2010 18:23, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 Geni:
However it fundamentally fails to explain why other areas of the
humanities such as those covered by
 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Military_history/Maritime_warfare_task_force/Operation_Majestic_Titan

 This is not a humanities subject,

History is generally viewed as a  humanities subject.

 nor does it have the problem that Sarah
 has been talking about, which is a horde of editors without any training in
 the subject being aggressively stupid, to use David's happy phrase.

But why not? Everyone knows what a battleship is right?

-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

  Geni, would you like to describe how you research
 sources?
 
 Entirely depends on what I'm doing. Sometimes I start with
 an article
 and go looking for refs.


Okay. Assume that all I am saying is: when you go looking for refs, look first 
whether there are any academic refs out there that might be useful to you.


 Again we go back to that simply being impossible for
 something like
 [[canal]]. I know my way around UK canals well enough to
 know that
 Charles Hadfield's work is the bedrock of of british canal
 history.
 But worldwide? For example I know japan has canals but I
 can't read
 japanese and would have no idea where to start if I did.


Seems to me you would not be the right editor to embark on this then. :) Best 
to leave it to someone who speaks Japanese, and they should have a look what 
scholarly literature there is available, including Japanese scholarly 
literature.


 However by that point you are getting into featured article
 standard
 rather than regular editing.


Long-term, that is where Wikipedia wants to be. The idea is that all articles 
will get better over time, until they are of a professional standard that 
deserves FA status. Whether that happens in practice is partly what we are 
discussing here.

 
 But even at that level your argument doesn't hold. The main
 author of
 the [[Manchester Bolton  Bury Canal]] featured article
 didn't have a
 copy of Hadfield's The Canals of Northwest England (Volume
 2). Thus
 collaboration.


Of course you collaborate -- one editor has one source, another has another 
source. But even the main editor presumably knew that Hadfield's book was 
important, and that the article would be incomplete without it. (In fact, 
looking at the first FAC, it seems the lead editor got hold of the book in the 
end to help the article pass.)


Peter Damian wrote:
1.  Is there a quality problem in certain areas.  Yes or no?

I do believe that the number of FAs and GAs that en:WP has in Philosophy and 
psychology is particularly low, especially when compared to areas like 
history, warfare and videogaming, or when compared to de:WP.

Other areas with low or low-ish numbers of FAs to date* are -

- Business, economics and finance
- Chemistry and mineralogy
- Computing
- Food and drink
- Health and medicine
- Language and linguistics
- Mathematics

A.


* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Fa



  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/3/2010 9:59:10 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
dger...@gmail.com writes:


 No, built by the masses was not the intent. The goal was to build an
 encyclopedia. It turns out the masses are fantastically useful in
 this, but claiming that was a goal is simply factually inaccurate. So
 I must say, in response to this remarkable claim: citation needed.


It's self-evident :0
Calling it the encyclopedia which anyone can edit implies the intent 
not goal as you stated, that we desire anyone to actually edit it.
Not just understand that they could and yet they won't and we don't 
actually want them to

Apparently, the project wants the masses to edit it, or are you claiming 
that that's just a false slogan to make a marketing point?

W
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread Andrew Gray

On 2 October 2010 18:13,  wjhon...@aol.com wrote:

 And you've missed the point.
 The entire thrust of our mission is to make readers into editors.

Inasmuch as we have a mission, it is to create a world in which every
single human being can freely share in the sum of all knowledge.

http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/Home

 That is the point of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

...which is a tool to achieve the goal above.

We should be careful not to mistake the fundamental goals for the
methods we choose to achieve them. Those methods are important, and we
would be lost without them, but they are emphatically *not* primary
goals in themselves.

-- 
- Andrew Gray
  andrew.g...@dunelm.org.uk

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-03 Thread geni

On 3 October 2010 22:09, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 Seems to me you would not be the right editor to embark on this then. :) Best 
 to leave it to someone who speaks Japanese, and they should have a look what 
 scholarly literature there is available, including Japanese scholarly 
 literature.

err by that standard the person would have to be able to read:

English
Japanese
French
German
Dutch
Chinese
Italian
Russian

and depending on how much you were worried about more recent events
arabic and spanish

So we are back to the problem that by your standards there is no one
on earth qualified to write the [[Canal]] article.



-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

  Seems to me you would not be the right editor to
 embark on this then. :) Best to leave it to someone who
 speaks Japanese, and they should have a look what
 scholarly literature there is available, including Japanese
 scholarly literature.
 
 err by that standard the person would have to be able to
 read:
 
 English
 Japanese
 French
 German
 Dutch
 Chinese
 Italian
 Russian
 
 and depending on how much you were worried about more
 recent events
 arabic and spanish
 
 So we are back to the problem that by your standards there
 is no one
 on earth qualified to write the [[Canal]] article.


If that's what you thought I was saying, you have misunderstood me. Let the 
person who can read Japanese contribute what they can from the Japanese 
scholarly literature, to cover any points specific to canals in Japan, and so 
forth. And failing such an editor, finding the best English-language work on 
Japanese canals will just have to do. Or you'd have to ask the Japanese 
WikiProject for help.

Like you say, it is a collaborative project; but everyone involved in that 
project should make an effort to find the most relevant, authoritative sources. 
You're doing no less when you refer to Hadfield, because, like you say, he is 
the bedrock of British canal history. If there were no editor like you who had 
bothered to find out that Hadfield is a sterling source to refer to on canals, 
Wikipedia would be much worse off. I don't think I am really in disagreement 
with you.

A.


  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 9:43 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 I predict Wikipedia's biology articles will far outshine its
 philosophy articles for the simple fact that the biologists bother:

 http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941

 They bothered paying author's fees for publication in a peer-reviewed
 specialist journal in their field, just to increase the quality of
 Wikipedia articles in their field. They're hardly going to rack up
 citation credits for an article on how to teach biology to the general
 public.

 With some fields going to this effort and not others, ultimately it's
 up to the specialists in the fields themselves to bother. So what do
 the biologists have that the philosophers - or other fields that are
 ill-represented in Wikipedia - lack?

 (That article is great, by the way. It gives strong reasons for
 experts to put in the effort to bother.)

So here am I looking for systematic reasons why philosophy, and humanities 
in general are under-represented in Wikipedia and you are saying that it is 
because philosophers - and by implication specialists in humanities - don't 
bother?  Interesting.  I once got puzzled why certain plants wouldn't grow 
in my garden.  I got frustrated and thought perhaps the plants weren't 
bothering.  Then I found that because my garden is north facing and has acid 
soil, the plants that like sunlight and don't like acid soil, weren't 
flourishing.

Anyway David, I said earlier that there are several stages to the process. 
The first is to see whether Wikipedia does have a problem with the 
humanities in general.  There needs to be a scientific methodology to assess 
what counts as 'under represented', there needs to be a survey to determine 
whether certain subjects are under-represented, and perhaps a paper in an 
appropriate journal.  That's step 1.

Step 2 - if the answer to step 1 is that there is a problem - is to 
determine whether there are underlying reasons (similar to sunshine, acidity 
of soil) that certain subjects are under-represented.  It could be the 
reason is chance (this seems to be what you are saying, that in certain 
subjects experts bother, in others they do).  If it is not chance, what are 
the reasons.

Step 3 - is there anything the WMF can do - either directly or by persuading 
the community - to address the problem.

Peter 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On 2 October 2010 07:58, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com

 http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941
 With some fields going to this effort and not others, ultimately it's
 up to the specialists in the fields themselves to bother. So what do
 the biologists have that the philosophers - or other fields that are
 ill-represented in Wikipedia - lack?

 So here am I looking for systematic reasons why philosophy, and humanities
 in general are under-represented in Wikipedia and you are saying that it is
 because philosophers - and by implication specialists in humanities - don't
 bother?  Interesting.  I once got puzzled why certain plants wouldn't grow
 in my garden.  I got frustrated and thought perhaps the plants weren't
 bothering.  Then I found that because my garden is north facing and has acid
 soil, the plants that like sunlight and don't like acid soil, weren't
 flourishing.


That's wonderfully poetic and doesn't answer the question I asked:
*what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
in your opinion? Please be specific.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:40 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.

 http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941

On the assumption that there is negative answer to Step 1 - namely, there is 
a serious problem with the content and quality of philosophy articles in 
Wikipedia (I think you agree that is not in doubt), then the answer is 
clearly that none of these approaches have worked so far for philosophy, 
either singly or collectively.  Does that answer your question?  The answer 
seemed so obvious that I didn't give it.

I suppose you will reply that it is in some way the fault of the 
philosophers.  This, as I poetically suggested, would be like blaming the 
plants that didn't like acid soil, for not growing in my garden.  I repeat: 
it is unfair to blame the plants.  Find out the problem with the garden or 
its environment or its soil or whatever, and try to fix that if possible.  I 
found the article here quite helpful

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden

Wtih every kind wish,

Peter 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On 2 October 2010 10:28, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com

 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.
 http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941

 On the assumption that there is negative answer to Step 1 - namely, there is
 a serious problem with the content and quality of philosophy articles in
 Wikipedia (I think you agree that is not in doubt), then the answer is
 clearly that none of these approaches have worked so far for philosophy,
 either singly or collectively.  Does that answer your question?  The answer
 seemed so obvious that I didn't give it.
 I suppose you will reply that it is in some way the fault of the
 philosophers.  This, as I poetically suggested, would be like blaming the
 plants that didn't like acid soil, for not growing in my garden.  I repeat:
 it is unfair to blame the plants.


At this point it may be useful to distinguish fault, blame and
agent who could take action. Philosophers are not passive planted
creatures, but active human agents who can decide to do something or
not.

Your aim (better philosophy articles) might be realised by changing
Wikipedia to suit philosophers, but it's reasonably clear from this
thread that this is unlikely to happen. This means alternate
approaches might be worth considering, to the end of better philosophy
articles in Wikipedia.

As such, and in the interest of better philosophy articles on
Wikipedia, could you please go through that list and tell me which
ones philosophers in particular will balk at? Not just you personally
(though that too), but others.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 10:34 AM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 As such, and in the interest of better philosophy articles on
 Wikipedia, could you please go through that list and tell me which
 ones philosophers in particular will balk at? Not just you personally
 (though that too), but others.

The question of which ones of the list philosophers will 'balk at' is quite 
different from the question of 'what would work' i.e. what would improve the 
content.  Answer: none of them. They are all eminently sensible and 
desirable.  On citation I can remember getting this drummed into me as part 
of my elementary philosophical training some years ago.

Now: why haven't they worked?

Peter 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 The question of which ones of the list philosophers will 'balk at' is 
 quite
 different from the question of 'what would work' i.e. what would improve 
 the
 content.  Answer: none of them. They are all eminently sensible and
 desirable.  On citation I can remember getting this drummed into me as 
 part
 of my elementary philosophical training some years ago.

 Now: why haven't they worked?

 Peter

To avoid any confusion here, my point was that:

1.  None of the items on this list 
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000941 
would be balked at by philosophers.  Philosophers already address most of 
these basic principles in their own work.

2. Equally, none of them, singly or collectively, would in my view address 
the problem of why philosophy is such a problem in Wikipedia.   Philosophers 
already address most of these basic principles in their own work, and they 
apply them on Wikipedia.  They haven't worked.  Philosophy is worse now than 
in 2005 (2007at the latest).





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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread SlimVirgin

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.

David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be
happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes
they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,
whereas editors are at least a little hesitant about wading into a
subject that clearly requires a specialist vocabulary.

Looking at an area I edit in, animal rights, I'm aware of only two
editors in that area since 2004 who have studied ethics at
postgraduate level. You don't need an academic background to edit all
those articles, but it helps for the articles where the philosophical
arguments have to be explained.

One of the editors with a background in ethics was a professional
philosopher who specialized in animal rights, and who stopped editing
after deciding that raving loonies were in charge, as he put it. And
the other is me. Expertise in that area is not recognized, because
everyone who has ever read a newspaper thinks they understand it. So
it is very frustrating, and if it's an area you specialize in
professionally, editing those articles feels like a complete waste of
time.

Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too
if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.

This is just one of the reasons I think it will always be harder to
recruit and keep philosophers.

Sarah
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SlimVirgin

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Marc Riddell

on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvir...@gmail.com wrote:

 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
 That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked:
 *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy,
 in your opinion? Please be specific.
 
 David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be
 happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes
 they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,

 snip

 Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
 years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
 subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too
 if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
 
Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach
someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they
think they already know.

Marc Riddell


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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/2/2010 3:01:47 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
slimvir...@gmail.com writes:


 Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
 years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
 subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too
 if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way. 

But are mission is to explain things to that level.  So those academics who 
don't have the time or patience to do that, should cede the floor to the 
journalists who do, shouldn't they?

When I read an encyclopedia article on Number Theory for example, I should 
be able to use just that work, perhaps other articles, to get all the 
information I need to *understand* the article.  Although I might want more 
depth, 
I shouldn't need to refer to any outside work to get the breadth.

By saying what you did above, you are essentially stating that in order for 
our readers to even understand an article they need a background in it.  I 
can't agree.

W.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 5:37 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 But are [sic] mission is to explain things to that level.

You have totally missed Sarah's point.  She said

Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for
 years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the
 subject is unnecessary.

Read the last part of her sentence. Academics don't mind explaining basic 
things, even when they aren't paid.  It's for explaining it to people who 
think it is *unnecessary* that they don't have patience.  The internet 
acronym for this is RTFM.  Have you heard of Randy from Boise?

 When I read an encyclopedia article on Number Theory for example, I should
 be able to use just that work, perhaps other articles, to get all the
 information I need to *understand* the article.  Although I might want 
 more depth,
 I shouldn't need to refer to any outside work to get the breadth.

You missed the point again.  Sarah is not saying that the *readers* need to 
understand the basics.  She is saying that the problem is with *editors*.

 By saying what you did above, you are essentially stating that in order 
 for
 our readers to even understand an article they need a background in it.  I
 can't agree.

Wrong. You misunderstand the point.  The point is that philosophy is one of 
those subjects that people think is easy to write about, although it isn't. 
Plus, it attracts a lot of editors whose belligerence and aggressiveness 
is in inverse proportion to their grasp of the subject.  I could name half a 
dozen specialists who left because of this.

Peter 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/2/2010 10:04:16 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peter.dam...@btinternet.com writes:


 You missed the point again.  Sarah is not saying that the *readers* need 
 to 
 understand the basics.  She is saying that the problem is with *editors*. 
 

And you've missed the point.
The entire thrust of our mission is to make readers into editors.
That is the point of an encyclopedia that anyone can edit.
You want to maintain the position of academics as a lofty top-level 
floating above the rest of society and we want to destroy it to level the field 
:)

Haven't you ever read Atlas Shrugged!
But seriously.  If readers *can* understand the article, then so can 
editors.
Your problem, is not that people can't *understand* it, it's that they 
don't *agree* with you.

Fine.  Yesterday, I starting fact-tagging an article that had a lot of odd 
claims in it.  My fellow editor went into a fit of pique and removed most of 
the article simply because he didn't want to have to find citations for his 
claims.

Good.  We do not want, read that again please, we DO NOT WANT, those 
academics who refuse to cite their claims.  We don't want them. :)

You're not an expert here because you *know*, you're an expert because you 
can support your claims.  You don't want that.  You want to just be an 
expert because you know without the need to prove it.  These articles aren't a 
private playground for a few highbrows, this is a brand-new medium never 
before encountered.  One in which even the most basic assumptions can be 
challenged, and are, and can be removed by anyone, any member of the public 
whatsoever, who feels the citations aren't firm or clear, and those who can't 
put up 
with that sort of mosh pit, are left in the dust.

W
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Haven't you ever read Atlas Shrugged!

OK you're a nutcase. Sorry.  This is exactly the problem I have with 
Wikipedia. End of conversation. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 6:13 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

You can't spell, you can't write, you shift ground constantly, you fail to 
understand even the most basic point.  Your understanding of the subject is 
in inverse proportion to you arrogance and hostility.  Wikipedia is full of 
people like you.

This of course will be used as proof that specialists do not understand 
Wikipedia and are therefore unwelcome. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread WJhonson

In a message dated 10/2/2010 10:21:22 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peter.dam...@btinternet.com writes:


 You can't spell, you can't write, you shift ground constantly, you fail 
 to 
 understand even the most basic point.  Your understanding of the subject 
 is 
 in inverse proportion to you arrogance and hostility.  Wikipedia is full 
 of 
 people like you.
 
 This of course will be used as proof that specialists do not understand 
 Wikipedia and are therefore unwelcome. 



You can sit in your padded room and throw your toys around in a temper 
tantrum, but that still won't change anything will it.
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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: wjhon...@aol.com
To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 7:09 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 You can sit in your padded room and throw your toys around in a temper
 tantrum, but that still won't change anything will it.

I apologise I lost my temper.  You are quite right.  Specialists do not 
belong on Wikipedia.  My apologies again. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On 2 October 2010 19:09,  wjhon...@aol.com wrote:

 You can sit in your padded room and throw your toys around in a temper
 tantrum, but that still won't change anything will it.


While WJohnson's manner is perhaps unnecessarily brusque here, this is
the point: what to do about this?

Wikipedia does appear to have fallen into its own folk ontology: an
answer to the question what is knowledge? that is simple and obvious
enough for smart high school students. And I'm not meaning to
denigrate smart high school students - but they haven't even had four
years of wrangling with the issue of how do we know what we know? at
undergraduate level.

Almost-right answers are easy, really solid procedures are rather more
difficult.

I put forward the computational biology answer (and I had singularly
failed to notice Magnus Manske's name amongst the authors), which is
ten things that I do think will help a lot.

The hard part, then, is how to get idiots a bit less out of experts'
faces. And it does affect the sciences - whenever politics is
involved. I give you the global warming articles, where an actual
no-foolin' renowned expert had right-wing American fundies trying to
vote him off the wiki.

This suggests the problem is: how do you *get across to* someone that
they're just ignorant, in a manner that is duplicable across the wiki,
and do that without breaking our spectacular successes so far?


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? How is it in other language projects?

2010-10-02 Thread Michael Snow

  On 10/2/2010 8:59 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
 I do believe the fact that there is less of a culture of scholarly source 
 research in en:WP, and a preference of press sources over scholarly sources, 
 especially in the humanities, impacts very negatively on en:WP's performance 
 in this area.
I believe this is twin to the common problem in English Wikipedia 
culture of an inappropriate bias against sources that are not written in 
English, or not readily findable online (and often both apply). Given 
that English is much more of a lingua franca in the sciences than in 
other disciplines, it should not be surprising if this leads to inferior 
coverage in the humanities.

--Michael Snow

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

- Original Message - 
From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com
To: Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 7:52 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

 Wikipedia does appear to have fallen into its own folk ontology: an
 answer to the question what is knowledge? that is simple and obvious
 enough for smart high school students. And I'm not meaning to
 denigrate smart high school students - but they haven't even had four
 years of wrangling with the issue of how do we know what we know? at
 undergraduate level.

David could you translate this section here please.  Are you saying that the 
question of what 'knowledge' that the WMF seeks to bring is a difficult 
question?  Also, be careful not to confuse the content of what is to be 
known with the medium through which it is acquired.  For example if I 
explain x in a very simple way that anyone can understand, and if I explain 
x using very technical way, the knowledge x is the same in both cases.  It's 
just that in one case it has explained in an easier way.  We aren't talking 
about different knowledge here. 

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? How is it in other language projects?

2010-10-02 Thread Milos Rancic

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 21:08, Michael Snow wikipe...@frontier.com wrote:
  On 10/2/2010 8:59 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
 I do believe the fact that there is less of a culture of scholarly source 
 research in en:WP, and a preference of press sources over scholarly sources, 
 especially in the humanities, impacts very negatively on en:WP's performance 
 in this area.
 I believe this is twin to the common problem in English Wikipedia
 culture of an inappropriate bias against sources that are not written in
 English, or not readily findable online (and often both apply). Given
 that English is much more of a lingua franca in the sciences than in
 other disciplines, it should not be surprising if this leads to inferior
 coverage in the humanities.

I would say that the roots of the problem lay in the bias of the
methods of humanities rather than in something inherent to Wikipedia.
Unlike in science, just [not all] top scholars in humanities have
enough exact methodology. The rest are using various types of
mystification to support their own myths. And building knowledge
database in open and collaborative manner is mostly in collision with
their interests.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On 2 October 2010 20:53, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
 From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com

 Wikipedia does appear to have fallen into its own folk ontology: an
 answer to the question what is knowledge? that is simple and obvious
 enough for smart high school students. And I'm not meaning to
 denigrate smart high school students - but they haven't even had four
 years of wrangling with the issue of how do we know what we know? at
 undergraduate level.

 David could you translate this section here please.  Are you saying that the
 question of what 'knowledge' that the WMF seeks to bring is a difficult
 question?


I didn't say or mean anything about the WMF. As I said, it's an
evolved folk construction of what knowledge means. And that this is a
hard question that actually getting really good at typically requires
four years of someone trying to beat it into the dense brains of
undergraduates.


 Also, be careful not to confuse the content of what is to be
 known with the medium through which it is acquired.  For example if I
 explain x in a very simple way that anyone can understand, and if I explain
 x using very technical way, the knowledge x is the same in both cases.  It's
 just that in one case it has explained in an easier way.  We aren't talking
 about different knowledge here.


No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get across to
idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking what clearly
works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for instance,
falling into a credentialism death spiral.)


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Omer Admani

It explains things quite well.

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 4:01 PM, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote:

 On 2 October 2010 20:53, Peter Damian peter.dam...@btinternet.com wrote:
  From: David Gerard dger...@gmail.com

  Wikipedia does appear to have fallen into its own folk ontology: an
  answer to the question what is knowledge? that is simple and obvious
  enough for smart high school students. And I'm not meaning to
  denigrate smart high school students - but they haven't even had four
  years of wrangling with the issue of how do we know what we know? at
  undergraduate level.

  David could you translate this section here please.  Are you saying that
 the
  question of what 'knowledge' that the WMF seeks to bring is a difficult
  question?


 I didn't say or mean anything about the WMF. As I said, it's an
 evolved folk construction of what knowledge means. And that this is a
 hard question that actually getting really good at typically requires
 four years of someone trying to beat it into the dense brains of
 undergraduates.


  Also, be careful not to confuse the content of what is to be
  known with the medium through which it is acquired.  For example if I
  explain x in a very simple way that anyone can understand, and if I
 explain
  x using very technical way, the knowledge x is the same in both cases.
  It's
  just that in one case it has explained in an easier way.  We aren't
 talking
  about different knowledge here.


 No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get across to
 idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking what clearly
 works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for instance,
 falling into a credentialism death spiral.)


 - d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Andreas Kolbe

 This suggests the problem is: how do you *get across to*
 someone that
 they're just ignorant, in a manner that is duplicable
 across the wiki,
 and do that without breaking our spectacular successes so
 far?


Well, one way is to make clear to our editors that we expect them to make a bit 
of an effort to research the existing scholarly literature. (And that they 
should do so first before arguing with people who have completed that step 
already.)

However, that idea does encounter resistance. I am reminded that I proposed as 
much once, a good few years ago. I started a talk page discussion, and we made 
some changes and additions (some of which are still in the guideline today). 

One change which didn't make it was the addition of this sentence: 

A review of the existing scholarly literature should be the first step in 
starting work on an article. 

The way the sentence was edit-warred out of the guideline is quite funny, in 
hindsight. It was removed a day later, with the edit summary: 

Rm sentence that runs counter to policy. 

Another editor put it back in, slightly changed, so it now said: 

A review of the existing scholarly literature *is recommended before* starting 
work on an article.

Half an hour later, that was taken out as well, edit summary: 

Asking the general public to become familiar with scholarly literature (which 
does not exist for all subjects) prior to editing places an unrealistic burden 
upon would-be editors. Where’s the policy?

I added it one more time, and it was taken out again and described as 
nonsense.

You get what you pay for.

Andreas




  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Omer Admani

Yes, surely, this makes sense.

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 4:32 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

  This suggests the problem is: how do you *get across to*
  someone that
  they're just ignorant, in a manner that is duplicable
  across the wiki,
  and do that without breaking our spectacular successes so
  far?


 Well, one way is to make clear to our editors that we expect them to make a
 bit of an effort to research the existing scholarly literature. (And that
 they should do so first before arguing with people who have completed that
 step already.)

 However, that idea does encounter resistance. I am reminded that I proposed
 as much once, a good few years ago. I started a talk page discussion, and we
 made some changes and additions (some of which are still in the guideline
 today).

 One change which didn't make it was the addition of this sentence:

 A review of the existing scholarly literature should be the first step in
 starting work on an article.

 The way the sentence was edit-warred out of the guideline is quite funny,
 in hindsight. It was removed a day later, with the edit summary:

 Rm sentence that runs counter to policy.

 Another editor put it back in, slightly changed, so it now said:

 A review of the existing scholarly literature *is recommended before*
 starting work on an article.

 Half an hour later, that was taken out as well, edit summary:

 Asking the general public to become familiar with scholarly literature
 (which does not exist for all subjects) prior to editing places an
 unrealistic burden upon would-be editors. Where’s the policy?

 I added it one more time, and it was taken out again and described as
 nonsense.

 You get what you pay for.

 Andreas






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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread geni

On 2 October 2010 21:32, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:
 This suggests the problem is: how do you *get across to*
 someone that
 they're just ignorant, in a manner that is duplicable
 across the wiki,
 and do that without breaking our spectacular successes so
 far?


 Well, one way is to make clear to our editors that we expect them to make a 
 bit of an effort to research the existing scholarly literature. (And that 
 they should do so first before arguing with people who have completed that 
 step already.)

 However, that idea does encounter resistance. I am reminded that I proposed 
 as much once, a good few years ago. I started a talk page discussion, and we 
 made some changes and additions (some of which are still in the guideline 
 today).

 One change which didn't make it was the addition of this sentence:

 A review of the existing scholarly literature should be the first step in 
 starting work on an article.

 The way the sentence was edit-warred out of the guideline is quite funny, in 
 hindsight. It was removed a day later, with the edit summary:

 Rm sentence that runs counter to policy.

 Another editor put it back in, slightly changed, so it now said:

 A review of the existing scholarly literature *is recommended before* 
 starting work on an article.

 Half an hour later, that was taken out as well, edit summary:

 Asking the general public to become familiar with scholarly literature 
 (which does not exist for all subjects) prior to editing places an 
 unrealistic burden upon would-be editors. Where’s the policy?

 I added it one more time, and it was taken out again and described as 
 nonsense.

 You get what you pay for.

 Andreas


Putting in place what are effectively featured article standards would
for starting new articles would be a great way of killing the project
if it was remotely enforceable.

Worse still articles like [[Canal]] would be effectively unrwritable
by anyone. Since there is not going to be anyone aware of all the
worldwide scholarly literature on the topic.

[[Canals of the United Kingdom]] would probably be impossible since
even Charles Hadfield needed help with his The Canals of North West
England book.

-- 
geni

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Andreas Kolbe

 No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get
 across to
 idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking
 what clearly
 works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for
 instance,
 falling into a credentialism death spiral.)


I guess it is also worth thinking about our criteria for success. What is 
success? Is it to have as many editors as possible? 

I'd suggest it isn't. Editors are undoing each other's work all the time, and 
typing millions of words arguing with each other. It is not efficient. We could 
say that doesn't matter, because they're all volunteers, but it is inefficient 
nonetheless.

The real criterion for success should be that we have good, well-researched, 
stable articles that inform the public.

I agree with you, David, that credentialism isn't the way forward. But asking 
editors, nicely, to please do some research and to check what scholarly 
literature is available, in google scholar, in google books, and in academic 
publications databases, should not be too much to ask.

Speaking of academic databases, one thing which would be a great boon would be 
to get Wikipedians access to these databases. It's all right for those who have 
ready access to a library or university system, but many databases of academic 
publications are closed to the general public. You get an abstract and/or the 
first page, and that's it: more is not available without logging in. Often, you 
can't even buy the paper if you're prepared to shell out money for it.

This is something where the Foundation could perhaps help, by asking 
universities who support our work whether they would be willing to grant 
Wikipedians -- or at least a limited number of Wikipedians -- some sort of 
affiliation status, so they could log into these databases the same way their 
students do.

Andreas


  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Omer Admani

I agree, increasing the quality of editors rather than number of editors
would increase the quality of information and decrease the propensity  of
editors to over-write incorrect information.

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

  No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get
  across to
  idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking
  what clearly
  works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for
  instance,
  falling into a credentialism death spiral.)


 I guess it is also worth thinking about our criteria for success. What is
 success? Is it to have as many editors as possible?

 I'd suggest it isn't. Editors are undoing each other's work all the time,
 and typing millions of words arguing with each other. It is not efficient.
 We could say that doesn't matter, because they're all volunteers, but it is
 inefficient nonetheless.

 The real criterion for success should be that we have good,
 well-researched, stable articles that inform the public.

 I agree with you, David, that credentialism isn't the way forward. But
 asking editors, nicely, to please do some research and to check what
 scholarly literature is available, in google scholar, in google books, and
 in academic publications databases, should not be too much to ask.

 Speaking of academic databases, one thing which would be a great boon would
 be to get Wikipedians access to these databases. It's all right for those
 who have ready access to a library or university system, but many databases
 of academic publications are closed to the general public. You get an
 abstract and/or the first page, and that's it: more is not available without
 logging in. Often, you can't even buy the paper if you're prepared to shell
 out money for it.

 This is something where the Foundation could perhaps help, by asking
 universities who support our work whether they would be willing to grant
 Wikipedians -- or at least a limited number of Wikipedians -- some sort of
 affiliation status, so they could log into these databases the same way
 their students do.

 Andreas




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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

2010-10-02 Thread Andreas Kolbe

 Putting in place what are effectively featured article
 standards would
 for starting new articles would be a great way of killing
 the project
 if it was remotely enforceable.
 
 Worse still articles like [[Canal]] would be effectively
 unrwritable
 by anyone. Since there is not going to be anyone aware of
 all the
 worldwide scholarly literature on the topic.
 
 [[Canals of the United Kingdom]] would probably be
 impossible since
 even Charles Hadfield needed help with his The Canals of
 North West
 England book.


I think that is a misunderstanding that operated at the time as well. This is 
not about having to chew your way through all the available scholarly 
literature before you are allowed to start the article canal. 

It is about checking if there *is* any scholarly literature out there. And 
accessing and using that as you grow the article. 

This is even more important when you start working on an article that has 
already existed for a number of years, and that other editors have built up to 
C-Class, or whatever.  Before you jump in and rewrite the whole thing, you 
should check the sources that are already cited, and check what scholarly 
sources are out there: authoritative sources that have been cited by many other 
authors, but still haven't made it into the article.

It is not unusual to find articles that are 5 years old and still don't cite a 
single scholarly source, even though there are plenty of scholarly sources out 
there.

Andreas


  Well, one way is to make clear to our editors that we
 expect them to make a bit of an effort to research the
 existing scholarly literature. (And that they should do so
 first before arguing with people who have completed that
 step already.)
 
  However, that idea does encounter resistance. I am
 reminded that I proposed as much once, a good few years ago.
 I started a talk page discussion, and we made some changes
 and additions (some of which are still in the guideline
 today).
 
  One change which didn't make it was the addition of
 this sentence:
 
  A review of the existing scholarly literature should
 be the first step in starting work on an article.
 
  The way the sentence was edit-warred out of the
 guideline is quite funny, in hindsight. It was removed a day
 later, with the edit summary:
 
  Rm sentence that runs counter to policy.
 
  Another editor put it back in, slightly changed, so it
 now said:
 
  A review of the existing scholarly literature *is
 recommended before* starting work on an article.
 
  Half an hour later, that was taken out as well, edit
 summary:
 
  Asking the general public to become familiar with
 scholarly literature (which does not exist for all subjects)
 prior to editing places an unrealistic burden upon would-be
 editors. Where’s the policy?
 
  I added it one more time, and it was taken out again
 and described as nonsense.
 
  You get what you pay for.
 
  Andreas
 
 



  

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

On 2 October 2010 22:00, Andreas Kolbe jayen...@yahoo.com wrote:

 I agree with you, David, that credentialism isn't the way forward. But asking 
 editors, nicely, to please do some research and to check what scholarly 
 literature is available, in google scholar, in google books, and in academic 
 publications databases, should not be too much to ask.


The problem is how to avoid making rules against stupidity. Because
you can't actually outlaw stupid. Experts already complain about
uncitability. I suppose we could advise experts on how to use citation
as a debating tactic.


 This is something where the Foundation could perhaps help, by asking 
 universities who support our work whether they would be willing to grant 
 Wikipedians -- or at least a limited number of Wikipedians -- some sort of 
 affiliation status, so they could log into these databases the same way their 
 students do.


I believe this has been mooted on many occasions. I also think it
doesn't address the problem of the aggressively stupid who won't take
in that they're being stupid.


- d.

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Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?