Re: [WikiEN-l] In defence of the minor edit
On 29 January 2010 01:35, David Goodman wrote: > (Incidentally, a fair number of the unsourced BLPs are in fact > copyvios, and when I see that, I speedy deleted on that ground, unless > it seems important enough to rewrite. ) Take care there - I increasingly see website bios that are basically the Wikipedia bio copied, 'cos they liked it! - d. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] In defence of the minor edit
I recognize the importance of the work done by those paying attention to the details I tend to overlook, but a sensitivity to the worst of the problems can be developed quite quickly without needing extensive analysis. The result of not glancing at least for major problems, is that people judging articles by seeing how much they've been edited will come to the wrong conclusions entirely. Myself, I think some sorts of BLP and copyvio problems are so serious that I try to keep an eye open for them at every article I touch. (Incidentally, a fair number of the unsourced BLPs are in fact copyvios, and when I see that, I speedy deleted on that ground, unless it seems important enough to rewrite. ) David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:59 AM, The Cunctator wrote: > Yes, trying to force people to do big edits is a bad idea. > > On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:19 AM, WereSpielChequers < > werespielchequ...@googlemail.com> wrote: > >> I'm afraid I have to disagree with David Goodman's final paragraph >> calling for an end to minor improvements to articles. I have done many >> thousands of such minor edits in my time, tasks such as going through >> all the articles with the word preformed and changing almost all to >> performed. That has resulted in my making minor improvements to many >> articles which I care nothing about and don't read more than the >> paragraph or sentence that I fix, other times I find an article >> interesting, read the whole thing and perhaps come across something >> else I can correct. I believe that on the whole what I do is useful, >> and I enjoy doing it. If I was paid to systematically go through >> wikipedia articles checking each whole article completely and fixing >> the errors I find, I am pretty sure the total improvement to Wikipedia >> I would make would be less per hour than my contributions as a >> volunteer, and of course there is the little matter of cost. Enabling >> volunteers to improve the bits of Wikipedia that they volunteer to do >> is much more cost effective than employing people and telling them >> what to work on. >> >> WereSpielChequers >> >> > The change that would make the biggest difference is that each person >> > who looks at an article for any reason , such as fixing typos or >> > adding categories or disam links, actually try to spot any serious >> > problems, not just do the routine task they came for. There are too >> > many BLPs that have been looked at twenty times, but none of them >> > carefully. >> > >> > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. >> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG >> >> ___ >> WikiEN-l mailing list >> WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org >> To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: >> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l >> > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
The proposed deletion, and tagging of articles asserted to be unsourced included a large number of articles that were in fact sourced. The most common reason was that suitable sources were put in the external references section, and merely had to be moved. Next most common was that they had been inserted in the text, but without using reference tags. And then there are the articles being prodded because the sources are not inline, even when they are adequate. Blanking does less harm than deletion, but it still does harm 1. the usual naïve viewer will not realise there;s an article in the history, no matter what notice is placed. Only the editors know about the page history, and almost nobody reads notices. 2. in the time spent to see if there are sources, a source could be added about half the time. 3. there is no reason to think the unsourced BLPs have more actual problems than the sourced ones, whether minimally sourced or even reasonably sourced. Apart from unsourced statements that are actual problems, many BLP violations (and NPOV violations generally) come from the failure , sometimes the deliberate failure, to include relevant material. Therefore, concentrating on these distracts us from the actual problems here. We don't know how to deal with the demands of doing accurate work in any sort of article, and this project is an irrelevant anodyne. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 7:51 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote: > On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:43 PM, David Goodman wrote: >> I would be uncomfortable with about blanking articles, if it couldnt >> do better in telling whether or not something is referenced than the >> last week or so of deletion nomination has done. >> >> David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. >> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > > I've read this five or six times and I can't figure out what you're > trying to say. Could you rephrase please? > > - causa sui > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 4:43 PM, David Goodman wrote: > I would be uncomfortable with about blanking articles, if it couldnt > do better in telling whether or not something is referenced than the > last week or so of deletion nomination has done. > > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG I've read this five or six times and I can't figure out what you're trying to say. Could you rephrase please? - causa sui ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
I would be uncomfortable with about blanking articles, if it couldnt do better in telling whether or not something is referenced than the last week or so of deletion nomination has done. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 1:32 PM, Abd ul-Rahman Lomax wrote: > At 11:06 AM 1/28/2010, Samuel Klein wrote: >>On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote: >> > On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:45 PM, phoebe ayers >> wrote: >> >> Running a mass deletion does have the unfortunate effect >> >> that there's no time for anyone to scramble for sources, which folks >> >> will do at least some of the time if given a chance. On the other >> >> hand, if *all* unsourced bios are deleted, at least no one can claim >> >> theirs was singled out for deletion! And hey, it gives a clean slate >> >> to start with (she says, somewhat tongue in cheek). >> > >> > You're right that these are all very bad problems. >> > >> > Pure Wiki Deletion would be an elegant solution to this, and many >> > other similar snafus. >> >>You and Abd ul-Rahman are right about that.a While PWD is simple and >>effective, its very lack of process means that it can be less >>satisfying for frustrated editors (an important engine behind >>passionate bulk actions). I wonder if there is some way to get the >>best of both hard and soft solutions. > > Thanks. As far as I can see, blanking the article content, > particularly with appropriate tags, would satisfy both approaches. It > isn't something strange and new, it is how Wikipedia already deals > with unsourced information in articles of all kinds, including > biographies, it is simply deleted or possibly moved to Talk (by any > editor). This is simply applying it the same principle to an article > as a whole. > > "Satisfying for frustrated editors"? Sure. But deletion must be done > by an administrator, and the dubious pleasure of deletion (take that, > fancruft!) is not quite respectable for admins, and ordinary editors > (or bad-hand accounts for "frustrated" administrators) tend to get > themselves banned for indulging too much or too openly in this > pleasure I'd think that blanking would be reasonably satisfying, > while doing much less damage in terms of eventual growth of the > project. If a deletionist wants to indulge his or her frustration at > cruft and unsourced BLPs by blanking the articles, I'm not offended. > It's actually much better and much simpler and much less disruptive > than speedy tags and AfDs and all that. > > In fact, that was part of the point of WP:PWD, to eliminate the often > silly contention over notability at AfD, and instead convert > "deletion" into an ordinary editorial decision that can, if conflict > arises, go through the gradual escalation of WP:DR, which can, in > theory, resolve disputes less disruptively than holding a community > discussion right at the outset. For sure, with BLPs with no reliable > sources, the content should go, immediately, as long as it goes in a > way that makes it easy to recover. > > And a bot can do it, very quickly and efficiently. The community is > almost certainly not going to allow bots to delete articles! I'm a > radical inclusionist, actually, but would have no trouble accepting > mass blanking under decent conditions. Particularly conditions where > the article, as-is, would not withstand AfD! > >>PWD also gets harder as speedy deletion criteria expand; now articles >>are sometimes speedied because they are blank. > > That problem would not get worse with PWD as an approach. As > unsourced BLPs, they are already totally vulnerable to speedy deletion. > > First of all, blanking would create an intermediate option that > addresses the BLP issues as well as notability issues. I'd really > encourage looking at how PWD could be made effective for all the > legitimate purposes behind the various factions in the present flap. > The article might not be blanked, it could be redirected to a page on > the kind of blanking that was done, giving instructions for how to > bring the article back. If problems developed with articles returning > without sourcing, the page could be semiprotected and that could even > be bot-assisted. > > Placing speedy tags should not be done by bot, at least not merely > for lack of sourcing, and I see no harm in a blanked article > remaining indefinitely; deletion would be requested by a blanked > article reviewer who finds that the blanked material was actually of > no use whatever, a hoax, or so radically incorrect that it will waste > the time of someone who wants to recreate the article. In that case, > deletion is exactly appropriate so that a new article starts fresh. > But an article where it is easy to verify that the topic exists and > some information can be found that is independent, though not > necessarily of high quality? The only difference, really, between PWD > and standard deletion is the reservation of the ability to read t
[WikiEN-l] Announcing: Britain Loves Wikipedia
Hi all, In case you haven't heard already, "Britain Loves Wikipedia", a free photography scavenger hunt following on from Wiki Loves Art et al., will be taking place in 21 museums and archives across the UK throughout February, and is launching on Sunday at the Victoria and Albert Museum! Full details are now up on the WMUK blog, at: http://blog.wikimedia.org.uk/2010/01/britain-loves-wikipedia/ and also the Britain Loves Wikipedia website at: http://www.britainloveswikipedia.org/ Thanks, Mike Peel Wikimedia UK PS: Apologies if you're not in the UK... ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
At 11:06 AM 1/28/2010, Samuel Klein wrote: >On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote: > > On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:45 PM, phoebe ayers > wrote: > >> Running a mass deletion does have the unfortunate effect > >> that there's no time for anyone to scramble for sources, which folks > >> will do at least some of the time if given a chance. On the other > >> hand, if *all* unsourced bios are deleted, at least no one can claim > >> theirs was singled out for deletion! And hey, it gives a clean slate > >> to start with (she says, somewhat tongue in cheek). > > > > You're right that these are all very bad problems. > > > > Pure Wiki Deletion would be an elegant solution to this, and many > > other similar snafus. > >You and Abd ul-Rahman are right about that.a While PWD is simple and >effective, its very lack of process means that it can be less >satisfying for frustrated editors (an important engine behind >passionate bulk actions). I wonder if there is some way to get the >best of both hard and soft solutions. Thanks. As far as I can see, blanking the article content, particularly with appropriate tags, would satisfy both approaches. It isn't something strange and new, it is how Wikipedia already deals with unsourced information in articles of all kinds, including biographies, it is simply deleted or possibly moved to Talk (by any editor). This is simply applying it the same principle to an article as a whole. "Satisfying for frustrated editors"? Sure. But deletion must be done by an administrator, and the dubious pleasure of deletion (take that, fancruft!) is not quite respectable for admins, and ordinary editors (or bad-hand accounts for "frustrated" administrators) tend to get themselves banned for indulging too much or too openly in this pleasure I'd think that blanking would be reasonably satisfying, while doing much less damage in terms of eventual growth of the project. If a deletionist wants to indulge his or her frustration at cruft and unsourced BLPs by blanking the articles, I'm not offended. It's actually much better and much simpler and much less disruptive than speedy tags and AfDs and all that. In fact, that was part of the point of WP:PWD, to eliminate the often silly contention over notability at AfD, and instead convert "deletion" into an ordinary editorial decision that can, if conflict arises, go through the gradual escalation of WP:DR, which can, in theory, resolve disputes less disruptively than holding a community discussion right at the outset. For sure, with BLPs with no reliable sources, the content should go, immediately, as long as it goes in a way that makes it easy to recover. And a bot can do it, very quickly and efficiently. The community is almost certainly not going to allow bots to delete articles! I'm a radical inclusionist, actually, but would have no trouble accepting mass blanking under decent conditions. Particularly conditions where the article, as-is, would not withstand AfD! >PWD also gets harder as speedy deletion criteria expand; now articles >are sometimes speedied because they are blank. That problem would not get worse with PWD as an approach. As unsourced BLPs, they are already totally vulnerable to speedy deletion. First of all, blanking would create an intermediate option that addresses the BLP issues as well as notability issues. I'd really encourage looking at how PWD could be made effective for all the legitimate purposes behind the various factions in the present flap. The article might not be blanked, it could be redirected to a page on the kind of blanking that was done, giving instructions for how to bring the article back. If problems developed with articles returning without sourcing, the page could be semiprotected and that could even be bot-assisted. Placing speedy tags should not be done by bot, at least not merely for lack of sourcing, and I see no harm in a blanked article remaining indefinitely; deletion would be requested by a blanked article reviewer who finds that the blanked material was actually of no use whatever, a hoax, or so radically incorrect that it will waste the time of someone who wants to recreate the article. In that case, deletion is exactly appropriate so that a new article starts fresh. But an article where it is easy to verify that the topic exists and some information can be found that is independent, though not necessarily of high quality? The only difference, really, between PWD and standard deletion is the reservation of the ability to read the history of the article to administrators only, which, in fact, increases the load on administrators without a corresponding benefit. Bots should only do things that are relatively harmless and that can be easily reversed. Deletion cannot be so easily reversed, and overwhelming the speedy deletion system with piles of speedy tags isn't a great idea. Blanking (or blanking with redirection as I'm suggest
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 7:27 PM, Ryan Delaney wrote: > On Thu, Jan 21, 2010 at 2:45 PM, phoebe ayers wrote: >> Running a mass deletion does have the unfortunate effect >> that there's no time for anyone to scramble for sources, which folks >> will do at least some of the time if given a chance. On the other >> hand, if *all* unsourced bios are deleted, at least no one can claim >> theirs was singled out for deletion! And hey, it gives a clean slate >> to start with (she says, somewhat tongue in cheek). > > You're right that these are all very bad problems. > > Pure Wiki Deletion would be an elegant solution to this, and many > other similar snafus. You and Abd ul-Rahman are right about that. While PWD is simple and effective, its very lack of process means that it can be less satisfying for frustrated editors (an important engine behind passionate bulk actions). I wonder if there is some way to get the best of both hard and soft solutions. PWD also gets harder as speedy deletion criteria expand; now articles are sometimes speedied because they are blank. SJ. ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Free data (UK government)
You might also be interested in the Open Knowledge Foundation's work in this area: http://blog.okfn.org/2010/01/21/datagovuk-goes-public-and-its-using-ckan/ More background: http://lists.w3.org/Archives/Public/public-egov-ig/2010Jan/0040.html WM-UK are also helping out with our annual Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2010: http://okfn.org/okcon http://okfn.org/okcon/cfp -- Jonathan Gray Community Coordinator The Open Knowledge Foundation http://blog.okfn.org Twitter/Identica: jwyg ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] In defence of the minor edit
Yes, trying to force people to do big edits is a bad idea. On Thu, Jan 28, 2010 at 8:19 AM, WereSpielChequers < werespielchequ...@googlemail.com> wrote: > I'm afraid I have to disagree with David Goodman's final paragraph > calling for an end to minor improvements to articles. I have done many > thousands of such minor edits in my time, tasks such as going through > all the articles with the word preformed and changing almost all to > performed. That has resulted in my making minor improvements to many > articles which I care nothing about and don't read more than the > paragraph or sentence that I fix, other times I find an article > interesting, read the whole thing and perhaps come across something > else I can correct. I believe that on the whole what I do is useful, > and I enjoy doing it. If I was paid to systematically go through > wikipedia articles checking each whole article completely and fixing > the errors I find, I am pretty sure the total improvement to Wikipedia > I would make would be less per hour than my contributions as a > volunteer, and of course there is the little matter of cost. Enabling > volunteers to improve the bits of Wikipedia that they volunteer to do > is much more cost effective than employing people and telling them > what to work on. > > WereSpielChequers > > > The change that would make the biggest difference is that each person > > who looks at an article for any reason , such as fixing typos or > > adding categories or disam links, actually try to spot any serious > > problems, not just do the routine task they came for. There are too > > many BLPs that have been looked at twenty times, but none of them > > carefully. > > > > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG > > ___ > WikiEN-l mailing list > WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org > To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l > ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
[WikiEN-l] In defence of the minor edit
I'm afraid I have to disagree with David Goodman's final paragraph calling for an end to minor improvements to articles. I have done many thousands of such minor edits in my time, tasks such as going through all the articles with the word preformed and changing almost all to performed. That has resulted in my making minor improvements to many articles which I care nothing about and don't read more than the paragraph or sentence that I fix, other times I find an article interesting, read the whole thing and perhaps come across something else I can correct. I believe that on the whole what I do is useful, and I enjoy doing it. If I was paid to systematically go through wikipedia articles checking each whole article completely and fixing the errors I find, I am pretty sure the total improvement to Wikipedia I would make would be less per hour than my contributions as a volunteer, and of course there is the little matter of cost. Enabling volunteers to improve the bits of Wikipedia that they volunteer to do is much more cost effective than employing people and telling them what to work on. WereSpielChequers > The change that would make the biggest difference is that each person > who looks at an article for any reason , such as fixing typos or > adding categories or disam links, actually try to spot any serious > problems, not just do the routine task they came for. There are too > many BLPs that have been looked at twenty times, but none of them > carefully. > > David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Re: [WikiEN-l] Administrator coup / mass deletions
On Wed, Jan 27, 2010 at 2:08 PM, Charles Matthews wrote: > The Cunctator wrote: >> Sometimes I don't understand people. Carcharoth goes to the trouble of >> finding his birth date, learning he received the Brazilian Order of Merit, >> and lists out some copy errors, but then doesn't fix the page? >> >> I mean, what's the point? >> > Um, maybe email is OK in the working environment, but spending time > editing WP not so? Just a thought. You seem a little impatient with > someone who is not in your time zone. Thanks, Charles. I did add the stuff I found, but clearly more is possible. http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Corell&action=historysubmit&diff=340496552&oldid=340442133 One problem with people rushing around adding sources to BLPs that may be deleted is that other stuff gets missed. Compare this: http://sustsci.aaas.org/content.html?contentid=471 With the initial version of the article: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Robert_Corell&oldid=76775195 Our article started on 20 September 2006. The aaas sustsci forum doesn't give a date for their article (which is unhelpful). So it is not clear which came first, but portions of each are identical. "Prior to joining the NSF in 1987, he was a Professor and academic administrator at"; "Dr. Corell is an oceanographer and engineer by background and training, having received". The facts are not copyrighted, and it is sometimes difficult to avoid standard biographical phrasings, but the wording is too close there. I haven't changed it yet, because I'm not sure which text came first. Taking an unreferenced block of text and working out if any portions of it are straight copy-paste copyvios is a nightmare to do. Many people don't bother, or just stick in a reference. The point here is that the sequence: i) Unreferenced text by anonymous or drive-by contributor ii) Wikified and tidied up by Wikpedians and left unreferenced for several years iii) References hurriedly added to save from deletion Will lead to a lot of situations like this. Carcharoth ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
