Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Brian Butler]

All fields have reviews, textbooks, popularization books, and encyclopedias ... 
but there are few scholars or disciplines that see creation of these resources 
(as valuable as they are) as their primary mission.   

For this discussion it's important for us to see that there are many ways in 
which this is highly functional.

Telling craftsmen (people?) to pay attention to end users needs rarely results 
in better design and it severely disrupts their social structures which are 
focused on intrinsic values.   In contrast, "entrepreneurs"/product 
creators/etc. are very focused on the match between artifacts and needs -- and 
their communities have very different ways of organizing and motivating 
participants.

While these distinctions are all a matter of degree, in most cases people (and 
groups) find it very difficult to be both/and.

...


On May 4, 2012, at 2:42 AM, Yaroslav M. Blanter wrote:

> On Thu, 3 May 2012 20:51:27 -0400, Brian Butler wrote:
>> Yes -- Wikipedia is an exercise in knowledge mobilization, not
>> knowledge creation.
>> 
>> While there are some exceptions, most scholars are seeking to create
>> knowledge (and academic literature is part of that process -- hence
>> rarely is it useful for knowledge mobilization).
>> 
>> We don't expect a physicist (or an electrical engineer) to be able
>> wire a house (or even write instructions for how to do it) -- and we
>> don't expect an academic paper to useful for someone wanting to know
>> how to plan wiring.
>> 
>> Researchers/scholars, inventors, product developers and users are
>> usually different people.
>> 
> 
> This is actually not correct. At least in natural sciences we have 
> review articles - long papers which summarize the existing knowledge in 
> a particular field. These articles are usually much appreciated by the 
> community, get widely read and cited. My best cited paper - such a 
> review article - is cites 15 times more than my second best cited paper, 
> which is a regular article. We also write books (sometimes even 
> textbooks) and contribute to encyclopedias.
> 
> Cheers
> Yaroslav
> 
> 
> 
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Thu, 3 May 2012 20:51:27 -0400, Brian Butler wrote:

Yes -- Wikipedia is an exercise in knowledge mobilization, not
knowledge creation.

While there are some exceptions, most scholars are seeking to create
knowledge (and academic literature is part of that process -- hence
rarely is it useful for knowledge mobilization).

We don't expect a physicist (or an electrical engineer) to be able
wire a house (or even write instructions for how to do it) -- and we
don't expect an academic paper to useful for someone wanting to know
how to plan wiring.

Researchers/scholars, inventors, product developers and users are
usually different people.



This is actually not correct. At least in natural sciences we have 
review articles - long papers which summarize the existing knowledge in 
a particular field. These articles are usually much appreciated by the 
community, get widely read and cited. My best cited paper - such a 
review article - is cites 15 times more than my second best cited paper, 
which is a regular article. We also write books (sometimes even 
textbooks) and contribute to encyclopedias.


Cheers
Yaroslav



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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Brian Butler]

Yes -- Wikipedia is an exercise in knowledge mobilization, not knowledge 
creation.

While there are some exceptions, most scholars are seeking to create knowledge 
(and academic literature is part of that process -- hence rarely is it useful 
for knowledge mobilization).

We don't expect a physicist (or an electrical engineer) to be able wire a house 
(or even write instructions for how to do it) -- and we
don't expect an academic paper to useful for someone wanting to know how to 
plan wiring.

Researchers/scholars, inventors, product developers and users are usually 
different people.

Wikis don't eliminate the roles -- they just make the different roles open to 
more

...

On May 3, 2012, at 5:29 PM, Ward Cunningham wrote:

On May 3, 2012, at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling wrote:

I would strongly encourage you to join the movement lobbying for openness in 
scholarly work. Otherwise, you're complaining about a problem that Wikipedians 
do not have the power to fix, because academics tacitly support a system in 
which knowledge is kept in the hands of the few who can pay for it.

Wow. I never made this connection. I'd always thought of the issue as the 
somewhat idealistic:

scholar => citizen

But you are absolutely right, the more immediate need is:

scholar => wikipedian => citizen

Of course citizens and wikipedians are sometimes hard to distinguish. But, with 
the distinction made, the path is more believably important.


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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[David Goodman]

They are more than an archive. They impose a very hefty surcharge on
their own account, beyond what they need pay for licensing the
backfiles from the publishers.  They spent the money very usefully in
the past: they have scanned and archived hundreds of thousands of
pages print journals at a time nobody else was doing it sand no
electronic backfiles existed, themselves developing the technology.
They continue to archive additional print publications--but since
there are so many people prepared to use what is now a mature
technology without charging anybody for it, perhaps this role is no
longer essential.

And making available backfiles that publishers have already digitized
costs very little by comparison. But their publishers are by and large
not profit-making commercial enterprises: they are primarily scholarly
societies, some of them prosperous, but most very precariously funded
themselves.




On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 7:06 PM, Steven Walling  wrote:
> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling 
> wrote:
>>
>> They do not have access to them, because they are unaffiliated scholars.
>> Dozens of editors want access to this content,[1] but can't have it because
>> JSTOR locks it down.
>
>
> A friend pointed out to me offlist that there is a slight error in my
> statement which merits correcting: JSTOR is not necessarily to blame here,
> since they are simply an archive, and have to fit in with how journal
> publishers license their content.
>
> So FWIW, the real solution probably starts with open access journals like
> those published by PLoS. Wikipedia could do a lot more to encourage use of
> the the open access content that already is available.
>
> --
> Steven Walling
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/
>
>
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>



-- 
David Goodman

DGG at the enWP
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:DGG
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[phoebe ayers]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 2:29 PM, Ward Cunningham  wrote:
> On May 3, 2012, at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling wrote:
>
> I would strongly encourage you to join the movement lobbying for openness in
> scholarly work. Otherwise, you're complaining about a problem that
> Wikipedians do not have the power to fix, because academics tacitly support
> a system in which knowledge is kept in the hands of the few who can pay for
> it.
>
>
> Wow. I never made this connection. I'd always thought of the issue as the
> somewhat idealistic:
>
> scholar => citizen
>
> But you are absolutely right, the more immediate need is:
>
> scholar => wikipedian => citizen
>
> Of course citizens and wikipedians are sometimes hard to distinguish. But,
> with the distinction made, the path is more believably important.
>

Ward, as ever you have a talent for breaking complex ideas down into
clear statements :) I think this is right, yes, is a position that we
can get better at articulating as a community.

This is self-serving, but I just gave a short talk about this topic last week:
http://www.phoebeayers.info/phlog/?p=2377

cheers,
Phoebe

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Steven Walling]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling wrote:

> They do not have access to them, because they are unaffiliated scholars.
> Dozens of editors want access to this content,[1] but can't have it because
> JSTOR locks it down.


A friend pointed out to me offlist that there is a slight error in my
statement which merits correcting: JSTOR is not necessarily to blame here,
since they are simply an archive, and have to fit in with how journal
publishers license their content.

So FWIW, the real solution probably starts with open access journals like
those published by PLoS. Wikipedia could do a lot more to encourage use of
the the open access content that already is available.

-- 
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Joe Corneli]

>> If as an academic, you see a problem where peer reviewed content is not
>> cited in Wikipedia, I would strongly encourage you to join the movement
>> lobbying for openness in scholarly work.

A distributed version of keepgrabbing2.py and a little bit of civil
disobedience on the part of some scholars and wikipedians would go a
long ways towards cutting this particular Gordian knot.  (We could
call the project KeepGrabbing@Home --- the search for intelligent life
on THIS planet.)

You may well disagree with this approach.  In fact, I see two options;
the other may be attractive.  (But I don't see any reason to imagine
that "lobbying" will get the job done.)

The two options:

   (1) building an infrastructure that makes the old one obsolete;
   (2) or recognizing the non-obsolescence of the old system, and
stealing whatever it has to offer.

Both courses can be pursued in parallel.

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Luca de Alfaro]

This is an EXCELLENT email, Steven.  +1 to it!

Luca

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling wrote:

> On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 2:41 AM, Richard Jensen  wrote:
>
>> JSTOR reports there were about 300 articles on Shakespeare a year in
>> scholarly journals in 1997 to 2006; none of them are cited, nor any since
>> then and only one before then.  This is typical as well of political and
>> military history. Wiki editors are not using scholarly journals. I assume
>> that is because they are unaware of them.
>
>
> Not at all.
>
> Wikipedians are *very much* aware that these journals exist. They do not
> have access to them, because they are unaffiliated scholars. Dozens of
> editors want access to this content,[1] but can't have it because JSTOR
> locks it down. They just now started letting people access content that is
> in the public domain!
>
> If as an academic, you see a problem where peer reviewed content is not
> cited in Wikipedia, I would strongly encourage you to join the movement
> lobbying for openness in scholarly work. Otherwise, you're complaining
> about a problem that Wikipedians do not have the power to fix, because
> academics tacitly support a system in which knowledge is kept in the hands
> of the few who can pay for it.
>
> --
> Steven Walling
> https://wikimediafoundation.org/
>
> 1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_JSTOR_access
>
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>
>
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Ward Cunningham]

On May 3, 2012, at 11:17 AM, Steven Walling wrote:

> I would strongly encourage you to join the movement lobbying for openness in 
> scholarly work. Otherwise, you're complaining about a problem that 
> Wikipedians do not have the power to fix, because academics tacitly support a 
> system in which knowledge is kept in the hands of the few who can pay for it. 

Wow. I never made this connection. I'd always thought of the issue as the 
somewhat idealistic:

scholar => citizen

But you are absolutely right, the more immediate need is:

scholar => wikipedian => citizen

Of course citizens and wikipedians are sometimes hard to distinguish. But, with 
the distinction made, the path is more believably important.


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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Steven Walling]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 2:41 AM, Richard Jensen  wrote:

> JSTOR reports there were about 300 articles on Shakespeare a year in
> scholarly journals in 1997 to 2006; none of them are cited, nor any since
> then and only one before then.  This is typical as well of political and
> military history. Wiki editors are not using scholarly journals. I assume
> that is because they are unaware of them.


Not at all.

Wikipedians are *very much* aware that these journals exist. They do not
have access to them, because they are unaffiliated scholars. Dozens of
editors want access to this content,[1] but can't have it because JSTOR
locks it down. They just now started letting people access content that is
in the public domain!

If as an academic, you see a problem where peer reviewed content is not
cited in Wikipedia, I would strongly encourage you to join the movement
lobbying for openness in scholarly work. Otherwise, you're complaining
about a problem that Wikipedians do not have the power to fix, because
academics tacitly support a system in which knowledge is kept in the hands
of the few who can pay for it.

-- 
Steven Walling
https://wikimediafoundation.org/

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Requests_for_JSTOR_access
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Felipe Ortega]

> De: Richard Jensen 
> Para: Research into Wikimedia content and communities 
> 
> CC: 
> Enviado: Jueves 3 de Mayo de 2012 10:24
> Asunto: Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like
> 
> I've been looking over a lot of history articles and the tupical pattern in 
> terms of edits is a bell-shaped curve with the peak around 2007.
> 
> For a good example see Shakespeare 
> http://toolserver.org/~tparis/articleinfo/index.php?article=William_Shakespeare&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia
>  
> look at the bar chart under "year counts..
> 
> By Nov 2007 the surge of editing virtually ended.  The article was then 83kb 
> in 
> length...it had a small burst of growth in late 2009 reaching 100k in June 
> 2009; 
> it is now 106k long.  Basically the article was mostly finished in 2007, and 
> has 
> had little change in the last 3 years. With a couple minor exceptions the 
> youngest source cited in the footnotes is 2006. The newest item in the 
> bibliography is one book from 2007,  I saw n=1 article in a scholarly journal 
> (from 1969). Maybe it's ok for a college freshman but an English major so 
> unaware of the recent scholarship would not get a good grade.
> 

Hi Richard.

I think the example is quite interesting. There is a surprising pike of 1,250 
edits in June 2007, and about 3,000 edits were added between May and October 
2007.

This made me think that there could be some possible causes behind this 
peculiar pattern. Indeed, I have found some organizational factors that we must 
consider to understand this case:

1. The effect of Wikiproject Shakespeare: It looks like it was founded in April 
2007 [1] [2].

"After we got ourselves organized, our first big project was bringing William 
Shakespeare to FA status" (from interview published on Signpost).

Thus, this is a good explanation for the febrile editing activity in subsequent 
months.

2. Apparently, it got FA status in August 2007 [3], and it showed up on the 
main page in October 2007 [4]. This can also explain the activity drop since 
then.

3. Yet another question is whether the fact that the article is currently 
semi-protected (and it is probably quite prone to vandalism, according to the 
high number of watchers) has some discouraging effect for new contributors.

Please, note that there are still new editors joining WikiProject Shakespeare 
in 2012.

Best,
Felipe.

[1] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Shakespeare/Archive_4
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Shakespeare
[3] 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_article_candidates/William_Shakespeare
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:William_Shakespeare

> The look at the contributors
> http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=William_Shakespeare
> 
> of the 9 editors with over 100 edits, only two have been active on this 
> article 
> in 2012
> 
> Shakespeare received 648,000 views in April 2012, compared to 585,000 in 
> April 
> 2010 and  575,000 in April 2008.  As for the often heard fear that anyone can 
> edit it, note that 1100 editors are watching over that article and are 
> alerted 
> to any changes.  However none of them has added anything from the ton of 
> scholarship that has appeared since 2006.  
> 
> 
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> - Mensaje original -


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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Laura Hale]

On Thu, May 3, 2012 at 7:41 PM, Richard Jensen  wrote:

> JSTOR reports there were about 300 articles on Shakespeare a year in
> scholarly journals in 1997 to 2006; none of them are cited, nor any since
> then and only one before then.  This is typical as well of political and
> military history. Wiki editors are not using scholarly journals. I assume
> that is because they are unaware of them. 
>
>
>
They are not aware of the use of scholarly articles for use on
Shakespeare's article or period?  If period, there are many places where it
would be unlikely that an article could be sourced well using scholarly
texts.  Think most biographies of living people.  Think sports.  (And if
you're going to do sports, the best histories are found in books.) A lot of
this changes from discipline to discipline, topic to topic.   (MEDRS
generally prohibits the use of citing primary source research on English
Wikipedia for medical articles, so it would be inappropriate to do so.)

In the case of Shakespeare, what of those 300 recent scholarly works do you
think are seminal to put into the article?  Are there any that would likely
be problematic because of [[WP:FRINGE]]?

The reasons why people don't use academic articles are more complicated
than your simplistic comment would suggest.  I spent about three hours
crawling through a library looking for research related to Lauren Jackson
and I can tell you none of the academic work would likely apply.  I doubt
you could source an article on it.


-- 
twitter: purplepopple
blog: ozziesport.com
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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Yaroslav M. Blanter]

On Thu, 03 May 2012 03:41:59 -0600, Richard Jensen wrote:

JSTOR reports there were about 300 articles on Shakespeare a year in
scholarly journals in 1997 to 2006; none of them are cited, nor any
since then and only one before then.  This is typical as well of
political and military history. Wiki editors are not using scholarly
journals. I assume that is because they are unaware of them. 




But is there smth in these publications which is not in the standard 
textbooks and should be necessarily cited for the general audience? 
Shakespeare is pretty well covered by textbooks, and from what I know 
there were no breakthroughs in the last 50 years at least. We can not 
put all the info in one article.


Cheers
Yaroslav

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Richard Jensen]

JSTOR reports there were about 300 articles on Shakespeare a year in 
scholarly journals in 1997 to 2006; none of them are cited, nor any 
since then and only one before then.  This is typical as well of 
political and military history. Wiki editors are not using scholarly 
journals. I assume that is because they are unaware of them. 



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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Amir E. Aharoni]

2012/5/3 Richard Jensen :
> Shakespeare received 648,000 views in April 2012, compared to 585,000 in
> April 2010 and  575,000 in April 2008.  As for the often heard fear that
> anyone can edit it, note that 1100 editors are watching over that article
> and are alerted to any changes.  However none of them has added anything
> from the ton of scholarship that has appeared since 2006.  

First, I'm simply surprised that there aren't more people who publish
articles about Shakespeare (or any other topic) and run to add its
summary to the relevant article. It's supposed to be good for them,
because it gives them and their research (and their opinions!) more
exposure, and it's supposed to be fine for Wikipedia, because they add
information which can be referenced in a peer-reviewed journal.

Second, maybe it's not that bad that not everything ends up on
Wikipedia. If they publish it in freely-accessible journals, it's
perfectly well-aligned with Wikimedia's goals - people should have
access to information and it doesn't have to happen through
wikipedia.org.

--
Amir Elisha Aharoni · אָמִיר אֱלִישָׁע אַהֲרוֹנִי
http://aharoni.wordpress.com
‪“We're living in pieces,
I want to live in peace.” – T. Moore‬

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Re: [Wiki-research-l] long in tooth: what outdated looks like

[Richard Jensen]

I've been looking over a lot of history articles and the tupical 
pattern in terms of edits is a bell-shaped curve with the peak around 2007.


For a good example see 
Shakespeare 
http://toolserver.org/~tparis/articleinfo/index.php?article=William_Shakespeare&lang=en&wiki=wikipedia 
look at the bar chart under "year counts..


By Nov 2007 the surge of editing virtually ended.  The article was 
then 83kb in length...it had a small burst of growth in late 2009 
reaching 100k in June 2009; it is now 106k long.  Basically the 
article was mostly finished in 2007, and has had little change in the 
last 3 years. With a couple minor exceptions the youngest source 
cited in the footnotes is 2006. The newest item in the bibliography 
is one book from 2007,  I saw n=1 article in a scholarly journal 
(from 1969). Maybe it's ok for a college freshman but an English 
major so unaware of the recent scholarship would not get a good grade.


The look at the contributors
http://toolserver.org/~daniel/WikiSense/Contributors.php?wikilang=en&wikifam=.wikipedia.org&grouped=on&page=William_Shakespeare

of the 9 editors with over 100 edits, only two have been active on 
this article in 2012


Shakespeare received 648,000 views in April 2012, compared to 585,000 
in April 2010 and  575,000 in April 2008.  As for the often heard 
fear that anyone can edit it, note that 1100 editors are watching 
over that article and are alerted to any changes.  However none of 
them has added anything from the ton of scholarship that has appeared 
since 2006.  



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