Re: [WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
Gregory Maxwell wrote: On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 3:24 PM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: And further reading sections can point the way for future expansions of the article, or for the reader to go and find out more about the topic. Carcharoth That is why I despise the war on external links and further reading some editors seem to think is appropriate. I don't think I've seen much evidence of a war on external links ... what there is is, however, is pressure against an unfiltered flood of external links. Anyone capable of using Wikipedia is also capable of using Google, Bing, or any of a number of other search engines. Beyond a point adding links reduces the value that Wikpedia provides over these resources. Even if you held the position that the world needed another unselective source of links, Wikipedia isn't especially well structured to provide it: There is little to no automation to remove dead or no longer relevant things, no automation to find new worthwhile links, and a lot of vulnerability to manipulation by interested parties. I think that at its best Wikipedia should be directly including all the information available up to Wikipedia's coverage depth, linking only for citations, then it should have links to the most valuable external resources which go deeper into the subject than Wikipedia reasonably can. If you need a raw feed of sites related to some subject area this is what the search engines do well. Seems to me you are (precisely) rationalising a war on external links. Of your three points, I don't really find anything to agree with. Taking the attitide that External links is the name of a Further reading section for reading that happens to be online, what exactly _are_ you arguing? That trawling through the first hundred hits on well-known search engines will always produce those links? That is easy to refute. For many sites of high academic value, precisely no (zero) SEO is done. I can easily think of examples. Very good links can be very hard to find, unless you have a good reason to suspect they are there. Given your style of argument, which is that we should be relying on the utility of commercial entities over which we have no control at all, to help our readers find the further information that we know (because WP does not aim to give complete coverage) they will need, I would say that Fred's worries are amply justified. Charles ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Of your three points, I don't really find anything to agree with. Taking the attitide that External links is the name of a Further reading section for reading that happens to be online, what exactly _are_ you arguing? That trawling through the first hundred hits on well-known search engines will always produce those links? That is easy to refute. For many sites of high academic value, precisely no (zero) SEO is done. I can easily think of examples. Very good links can be very hard to find, unless you have a good reason to suspect they are there. High value links should always be provided. Can you provide an reference to a Wikimedian arguing that links to the most useful additional resources shouldn't be provided? I'll gladly go and disagree with them. But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: * Readers will be inundated, no one is likely to follow more than a couple so the very high value links will be lost in the less valuable ones. * Wikipedia editors are unlikely periodically review links in a large collection (supported by the high density of dead links, and the malicious sites I've found in prior scans of our internals links). * Long lists provide plausible denyability for someone attempting to profit by placement, as additions to link soup doesn't look suspect. * Someone looking for a large collection of assorted links on a subject can find a larger and more current list from any of the search providers. Given your style of argument, which is that we should be relying on the utility of commercial entities over which we have no control at all, to help our readers find the further information that we know (because WP does not aim to give complete coverage) they will need, I would say that Fred's worries are amply justified. I bothered making the argument here because I believed that Fred was likely mischaracterizing the nuanced position people have taking in trying to balance the value of additional links vs their cost as a simple war on external links, when no one was likely carrying on any such war: Just because someone has decided on a different benefit trade-off than you doesn't make their activities a war on all X. I wish there were a usable non-commercial search engine. But Wikipedia clearly isn't that. Wikipedia's value is in human editorial review. A search engine's value is in enormous scale automation, machine neutrality (not the google results are neutral, but it is resistant to many kinds of bias which wikipedia is not), and automated updates. Everyone on the internet already has access to high quality search engines. I just don't think that making Wikipedia into a poor search engine at the expensive of diluting the selectivity is a net positive for the reader. ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 10:58 AM, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: snip But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: Sometimes, if you prepare a proper bibliography for an article (those notes people should write before they write an article, so they know the sources they are working with) you can end up dumping 50 or more links onto the talk page of an article for more thorough discussion and sorting through stuff before adding it to the article. It is that sort of helpful dumping that I think people don't want to see removed from articles. Or at least it should be removed to the talk page. I think what happens is that some people (those who get too involved with sweeping through many articles looking for external link farms) lose perspective and instead of moving the links to the talk page for better integration to the article, they just remove them completely. 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Freedom Fighters?
Also got it. It seems they have a different message for inactive admins: Dear administrator, We tried to get in contact with you almost a year ago, detailing our desires to utilise your account to help rid Wikipedia of the corruption and bureaucracy at every level that continues to plague it to this very day. We are hoping that, almost a year on, your circumstances may have changed and you may be more willing to aid us in achieving our goal. At the end of the day we all want the same thing - an encyclopedia that is informative and accurate, but one that is also run in a fair manner so all can contribute on an equitable level. As a reminder, here is an extract from our original message: We are currently expanding our portfolio of administrator accounts, and as yours remains dormant perhaps you could consider donating it to us - to do so will take you only two minutes: change the password (if desired) and then reply to this email with your login details. We'll do the rest! Once more, thank you for your time and consideration, and naturally do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. Kind Regards, The Wikipedia Freedom Fighters On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 6:37 AM, icewe...@gmail.com wrote: Just ignore it. All admins have been getting these. Nothing is coming of it, except perhaps some little humor if one so desires. On Sun, Mar 28, 2010 at 11:09 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: David Gerard wrote: On 28 March 2010 17:18, William Pietri will...@scissor.com wrote: I just received an odd email suggesting I hand over my admin account to the Wikipedia Freedom Fighters. I see that they did something similar back in May. Whether this is an actual effort or just a way to stir up trouble, I dunno -- the content was ridiculous enough that I figure it's probably trolling -- but I figured I'd mention it. Indeed. Best filed with any other phishing or trolling. Goes like this: As an advanced user here at wikipedia, I am sure you are familiar with the corruption and bureaucracy that exists at every level, with the site effectively being run by a clique of editors who are only looking out for their own interests. Heck, maybe you are one of them! Hopefully though you are not, and would be willing to help us restore fairness and integrity to the project... We are currently expanding our portfolio of administrator accounts and perhaps you could consider sharing yours with us - to do so will take you only two minutes: change the password (if desired) and then reply to this email with your login details. We'll do the rest! Thank you for your time and consideration, and naturally do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions. That's an onsite mail, from the account of User:Goldfishhunting who has been blocked. Charles ___ 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 -- Qui audet adipiscitur. ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
Gregory Maxwell wrote: On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Of your three points, I don't really find anything to agree with. Taking the attitide that External links is the name of a Further reading section for reading that happens to be online, what exactly _are_ you arguing? That trawling through the first hundred hits on well-known search engines will always produce those links? That is easy to refute. For many sites of high academic value, precisely no (zero) SEO is done. I can easily think of examples. Very good links can be very hard to find, unless you have a good reason to suspect they are there. High value links should always be provided. Can you provide an reference to a Wikimedian arguing that links to the most useful additional resources shouldn't be provided? I'll gladly go and disagree with them. I have had a look around WP:EL and its Talk, and I believe it is clearly not the case (given the 20 reasons not to include a link, starting with a catchall) that the guideline is in the hands of those who have that as credo. See below for more. But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: snip OK, reductio ad absurdum. Given your style of argument, which is that we should be relying on the utility of commercial entities over which we have no control at all, to help our readers find the further information that we know (because WP does not aim to give complete coverage) they will need, I would say that Fred's worries are amply justified. I bothered making the argument here because I believed that Fred was likely mischaracterizing the nuanced position people have taking in trying to balance the value of additional links vs their cost as a simple war on external links, when no one was likely carrying on any such war: Just because someone has decided on a different benefit trade-off than you doesn't make their activities a war on all X. But what I see around WP:EL is quite different. Basically it now stands, in relation to linkspam, as WP:N can be considered to stand in relation to cruft. But it has clearly gone further down the deletionist road, and (I presume, just as you jumped to sections of 50 extlinks) anyone who objects is supposed to love linkspam. It seems apparent that a working concept of justifiability has been introduced, analogous to notability; that the onus is on anyone adding an extlink is to show it is justifiable, and your third point is parodied (I hope it is only a parody) as Any site that does not provide a unique resource beyond what the article would contain if it became a featured article (WP:ELNO). What you wrote is I think that at its best Wikipedia should be directly including all the information available up to Wikipedia's coverage depth, linking only for citations, then it should have links to the most valuable external resources which go deeper into the subject than Wikipedia reasonably can. Obviously the word unique is just bad drafting - should be replaced by distinctive or something that doesn't mean if two web pages have the same essential content we can't have either as extlk. But deeper into the subject than Wikipedia reasonably can and what the article would contain if it became a featured article both make our criteria for justifiability be driven by a state of affairs that is not only hard to define, but actually in practical terms applies only to 1 out of 1000 articles, with no prospect of this proportion changing soon. In short, while no one can be for linkspam or including long lists of duplicative exlks, since Wikipedia is not a web directory, the guideline has gone over to necessary to inclusion by a general criterion (so worse than WP:N) and at the same time junked good sense and weaving the web at the basic, nodal level. Not good at all. I don't see the trade-off. What I see is that WP:EL is now a battery of arguments for winning arguments about what is linkspam, with complete disregard for the cost on the majority of topics, which are neither likely to be spammed seriously, nor enjoy the incorporation cycle whereby extlk content is written into the article in a timely fashion. Charles ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
There are other things to do short of that. 1. try to change the interpretation of NOT DIRECTORY and the EL policy to permit a section of links with more generous standards. 2. try to get a policy for adding a subpage for links to articles 3. run a mirror of the project, with links added, which is easier better than a true fork where the articles diverge. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: I think the point is to use editorial judgment with respect to what external links and further reading are worthwhile. My experience is that very good links regularly get axed. And there is little you can do other than to fork the project if you don't like it. Fred Bauder On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Of your three points, I don't really find anything to agree with. Taking the attitide that External links is the name of a Further reading section for reading that happens to be online, what exactly _are_ you arguing? That trawling through the first hundred hits on well-known search engines will always produce those links? That is easy to refute. For many sites of high academic value, precisely no (zero) SEO is done. I can easily think of examples. Very good links can be very hard to find, unless you have a good reason to suspect they are there. High value links should always be provided. Can you provide an reference to a Wikimedian arguing that links to the most useful additional resources shouldn't be provided? I'll gladly go and disagree with them. But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: * Readers will be inundated, no one is likely to follow more than a couple so the very high value links will be lost in the less valuable ones. * Wikipedia editors are unlikely periodically review links in a large collection (supported by the high density of dead links, and the malicious sites I've found in prior scans of our internals links). * Long lists provide plausible denyability for someone attempting to profit by placement, as additions to link soup doesn't look suspect. * Someone looking for a large collection of assorted links on a subject can find a larger and more current list from any of the search providers. Given your style of argument, which is that we should be relying on the utility of commercial entities over which we have no control at all, to help our readers find the further information that we know (because WP does not aim to give complete coverage) they will need, I would say that Fred's worries are amply justified. I bothered making the argument here because I believed that Fred was likely mischaracterizing the nuanced position people have taking in trying to balance the value of additional links vs their cost as a simple war on external links, when no one was likely carrying on any such war: Just because someone has decided on a different benefit trade-off than you doesn't make their activities a war on all X. I wish there were a usable non-commercial search engine. But Wikipedia clearly isn't that. Wikipedia's value is in human editorial review. A search engine's value is in enormous scale automation, machine neutrality (not the google results are neutral, but it is resistant to many kinds of bias which wikipedia is not), and automated updates. Everyone on the internet already has access to high quality search engines. I just don't think that making Wikipedia into a poor search engine at the expensive of diluting the selectivity is a net positive for the reader. ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
There are other things to do short of that. 1. try to change the interpretation of NOT DIRECTORY and the EL policy to permit a section of links with more generous standards. Good faith requires an attempt. 2. try to get a policy for adding a subpage for links to articles That is what they did on Citizendium. Fred 3. run a mirror of the project, with links added, which is easier better than a true fork where the articles diverge. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 9:17 AM, Fred Bauder fredb...@fairpoint.net wrote: I think the point is to use editorial judgment with respect to what external links and further reading are worthwhile. My experience is that very good links regularly get axed. And there is little you can do other than to fork the project if you don't like it. Fred Bauder On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 4:39 AM, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Of your three points, I don't really find anything to agree with. Taking the attitide that External links is the name of a Further reading section for reading that happens to be online, what exactly _are_ you arguing? That trawling through the first hundred hits on well-known search engines will always produce those links? That is easy to refute. For many sites of high academic value, precisely no (zero) SEO is done. I can easily think of examples. Very good links can be very hard to find, unless you have a good reason to suspect they are there. High value links should always be provided. Can you provide an reference to a Wikimedian arguing that links to the most useful additional resources shouldn't be provided? I'll gladly go and disagree with them. But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: * Readers will be inundated, no one is likely to follow more than a couple so the very high value links will be lost in the less valuable ones. * Wikipedia editors are unlikely periodically review links in a large collection (supported by the high density of dead links, and the malicious sites I've found in prior scans of our internals links). * Long lists provide plausible denyability for someone attempting to profit by placement, as additions to link soup doesn't look suspect. * Someone looking for a large collection of assorted links on a subject can find a larger and more current list from any of the search providers. Given your style of argument, which is that we should be relying on the utility of commercial entities over which we have no control at all, to help our readers find the further information that we know (because WP does not aim to give complete coverage) they will need, I would say that Fred's worries are amply justified. I bothered making the argument here because I believed that Fred was likely mischaracterizing the nuanced position people have taking in trying to balance the value of additional links vs their cost as a simple war on external links, when no one was likely carrying on any such war: Just because someone has decided on a different benefit trade-off than you doesn't make their activities a war on all X. I wish there were a usable non-commercial search engine. But Wikipedia clearly isn't that. Wikipedia's value is in human editorial review. A search engine's value is in enormous scale automation, machine neutrality (not the google results are neutral, but it is resistant to many kinds of bias which wikipedia is not), and automated updates. Everyone on the internet already has access to high quality search engines. I just don't think that making Wikipedia into a poor search engine at the expensive of diluting the selectivity is a net positive for the reader. ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On 29 March 2010 03:55, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even for the US, about 80% of the members of state legislatures historically are not covered. For the current Michigan House of Representatives, only 50% of the current members have articles, and almost none of the earlier ones. this is very low-lying fruit, well within the reach of any beginner. Attempting to redefine the difficulty in writing any given article won't help. Without access to the back issues of local newspapers writing such articles would be rather dificult and even with them acquiring the level of base knowledge that tends to be required to write about a subject would not be easy. If the other Wikipedias did similarly full coverage of their home countries and we translated the articles, there would probably be potential for an order of magnitude. Size of national libiaries and the like says no. -- geni ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 7:08 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 March 2010 03:55, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: snip If the other Wikipedias did similarly full coverage of their home countries and we translated the articles, there would probably be potential for an order of magnitude. Size of national libraries and the like says no. How so? Number of countries is 193 (roughly), but even if you factor in the fact that some countries share languages and some countries are a bit, well, small, you still have something that could approach a factor of x10 (i.e. an order of magnitude). There are plenty of cases where I've run into a blank wall as far as English-language sources go, but have been able to see that sources exist in another language (usually the native language of the person or institution concerned), so rather than miss things in translation, I try and find an article in that language edition of Wikipedia, or wait for, or request, an article, and then ask for it to be translated. Has anyone ever done a study on what the total number of articles would be if you assumed all interwiki links are currently correct (many are not) and assumed that all non-interwikied articles need translation (rather than someone adding the correct interwiki link, which is just as likely), and come up with a total figure if all articles were translated? 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
On 29 March 2010 10:58, Gregory Maxwell gmaxw...@gmail.com wrote: But I do believe that a list of, say, 50 links tagged onto the end of an article typically has negative value for the following reasons: Yeah. 7-10 is IMO the absolute limit for non-reference links, and I can hardly think of an article that can reasonably justify more than three or four. (I'm sure someone will weigh in with counterexamples, I'm speaking in the general case.) - 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
Within any state, any public library will be able to assist sufficiently on their own state's legislature. Even for those who don't like libraries, GBooks probably will in the next few years scan all local newspapers for pre-1920 (they have quite a lot already), what information for that period they do not do, other projects will, especially for public records. I deliberately picked Michigan, because of the quality and amount of scanning with free access being done by the University of Michigan. Some other states are almost equally good for local material, such as Texas. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 2:08 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 March 2010 03:55, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even for the US, about 80% of the members of state legislatures historically are not covered. For the current Michigan House of Representatives, only 50% of the current members have articles, and almost none of the earlier ones. this is very low-lying fruit, well within the reach of any beginner. Attempting to redefine the difficulty in writing any given article won't help. Without access to the back issues of local newspapers writing such articles would be rather dificult and even with them acquiring the level of base knowledge that tends to be required to write about a subject would not be easy. If the other Wikipedias did similarly full coverage of their home countries and we translated the articles, there would probably be potential for an order of magnitude. Size of national libiaries and the like says no. -- geni ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On 29 March 2010 19:43, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Within any state, any public library will be able to assist sufficiently on their own state's legislature. Much of it isn't online and photocopies remain way pricey. Do libraries generally throw people out for getting out their phone and photographing pages from public domain books? - 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On 29 March 2010 19:18, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: How so? Number of countries is 193 (roughly), but even if you factor in the fact that some countries share languages and some countries are a bit, well, small, you still have something that could approach a factor of x10 (i.e. an order of magnitude). Because once you move outside Western Europe and north America you don't have to go back very far before record have been lost, destroyed, never kept or kept by Western Euorpeans. Take Ghana for example. Records are extremely thin (the odd islamic report, Portuguese and Dutch reports from the cost from the 15th century onwars). Solid records of the whole area don't appear until the British set fire to/pacified it in the 19th century. Take Asamani an accra chief. Managed to capture Osu Castle back the 1690s. A few records exist of that and reports of European traders who apparently had no problems trading with him while he occupied the castle. Other than that he hardly seems to exist. -- geni ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On Mon, Mar 29, 2010 at 7:51 PM, geni geni...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 March 2010 19:18, Carcharoth carcharot...@googlemail.com wrote: How so? Number of countries is 193 (roughly), but even if you factor in the fact that some countries share languages and some countries are a bit, well, small, you still have something that could approach a factor of x10 (i.e. an order of magnitude). Because once you move outside Western Europe and north America you don't have to go back very far before record have been lost, destroyed, never kept or kept by Western Europeans. snip Sure, but my other question remains. What is the degree of overlap between Wikipedia language editions and what is the rate at which stuff is being translated and moved between editions, and what could the potential eventual size be if that was done with improved efficiency and reliability? 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
Re: [WikiEN-l] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On 29/03/2010, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Even for the US, about 80% of the members of state legislatures historically are not covered. For the current Michigan House of Representatives, only 50% of the current members have articles, and almost none of the earlier ones. this is very low-lying fruit, well within the reach of any beginner. There's the question as to how notable they really are; would you ever get significant coverage for most of them? Is part of Wikipedia's mission really to have all of the members of congress, or would we just link out to that? My suspicion is that whatever the policies say, a lot of this would get AFDd. In any case, an encyclopedia is supposed to summarise knowledge. Unless a particular person is really important to that *summary* for more than one thing they probably shouldn't be in the Wikipedia. David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG -- -Ian Woollard ___ 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] Looking for thoughts on statistics
On 29 March 2010 19:46, David Gerard dger...@gmail.com wrote: On 29 March 2010 19:43, David Goodman dgoodma...@gmail.com wrote: Within any state, any public library will be able to assist sufficiently on their own state's legislature. Much of it isn't online and photocopies remain way pricey. Do libraries generally throw people out for getting out their phone and photographing pages from public domain books? Depends where you are. Some library systems will suggest you bring a proper camera (rather than photocopying at all) other counties will have a fit. -- geni ___ 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] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the yardstick for Wikipedia entries
http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/03/29/9986468.aspx -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine PGP.sig Description: PGP signature ___ 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] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the yardstick for Wikipedia entries
On 29 March 2010 21:51, Kwan Ting Chan k...@ktchan.info wrote: http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/03/29/9986468.aspx As has been pointed out in the comments, word length isn't a measure of importance. For our better articles, it's mainly a measure of how much there is to say on a subject. For articles that are still under development, it's mostly a measure of how much time people have spent on that article. Ginsburg's article is currently rated as C-class, so it falls under the latter measurement system. ___ 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] Ruth Bader Ginsburg, the yardstick for Wikipedia entries
I guess a Ginsburg is our new standard unit of length. And it has the virtue of potentially evolving. Fred Bauder http://blogs.msdn.com/oldnewthing/archive/2010/03/29/9986468.aspx -- Experience is a good school but the fees are high. - Heinrich Heine ___ 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] A war on external links? Was: Inside Higher Ed: Does Wikipedia Suck?
I made this page a few years ago: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Angela/Links_study Updating it for 2010 doesn't provide any evidence that there was a war on external links any time recently. Maybe there was one in 2006? Total links in the external links section of 8 articles (Russia, marketing, Star Wars, SEO, TVR, medicine, Jewellery, and Tamagotchi): 2010= 48 2009= 46 2008= 40 2007= 50 2006= 81 2005= 51 2004= 50 2003= 10 2002= 2 2001= 2 Angela ___ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
