[WikiEN-l] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
(Pardon me if I'm doing something wrong regarding the mailing list, I'm a newbie to posting despite lurking for some time) David Lindsey wrote: snip I would like to think that we can all agree that Professor Wertheim's critical response is a helpful one, and that adapting the article appropriately would be of benefit to Wikipedia. The entire process of finding an expert to review the article took no more than a half hour of my time and produced a benefit for Wikipedia that substantially exceeds that cost. /snip Yes, the critical response is helpful, and reacting to it would be a good idea. I do raise my eyebrows at the time required, though. There are plenty of difficulties involved in finding an appropriate expert, contacting them, and—importantly—convincing them to use their time to review the article. It's hard to generalize that most Wikipedians should be able to find a (willing) expert on a subject in so little time, especially for more obscure or less academic topics. snip Finally, though this idea failed to gain any real traction on wiki, I would like to state my support for the idea of adding a fifth criterion to WP:WIAFA: 5. The article, if possible, has been reviewed by an external subject-matter expert. Even if no such criterion is added, though, I would like to emphasize that it will always, or nearly always, be productive to attempt to find an expert reviewer. /snip Yes, expert reviewers are generally a good thing. I think that there might be some trouble with controversial articles (if the expert is slanted one way or another, a review correcting mistakes might not be helpful to NPOV). The dubiousness of Citizendium's homeopathy article makes a good example. I don't currently believe that expert review should be added as a criterion for Featured articles, however, because of the classic problems with experts. First, how would the interactions/credentials be verified? I can just imagine it now: I'm submitting this article 'Unobtainium synthesis' to FAC because I think it meets the criteria. Also, the article got an excellent rating on review by Dr. L. Olfake, which she emailed to me the other day. (In case you didn't catch it: lol fake) Second, how do we avoid Citizendium-like problems? (This is certainly an issue, see also the earlier Citizendium dead? thread in this list) Third, would it add systemic bias, or extra hurdles to the process, as Charles Matthews mentions? I'll stop touting the issues, because that's not quite helpful, but there are significant problems with integrating expert review that we ought to address (if not solve) before making it remotely mandatory. If we were to integrate expert review, I'd start it as another *layer* of Wikipedia. I strongly believe that showing very prominently the level of review a given article—or even a given *revision* thereof—has received, and the perceived level of quality involved, is a good thing. The Wikipedia 1.0 assessment system (Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA…) seems to serve as a decent start for that sort of thing. (In the long run, I'd love to see some system integrating this with some addition to the planned patrolled revisions feature that adds passive flags to revisions.) If we were to bolt on an expert review process to the Featured article system, why not make it a new level? I can imagine it now: FA+. Take a community FA, and give it a (reasonably verified) expert review, and if all outstanding issues are addressed, call it an FA+ instead. Granted, this involves all sorts of instruction creep, but it's just a starting idea. A practical implementation is left as an exercise for the reader. ;) I think that expert review is a good idea (we like expert participation as long as they're not jerks about it), but I'm cautious about its feasibility in Wikipedia as an official process. /ramble Cheers, Nihiltres ___ 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] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
Nihiltres wrote: snip I strongly believe that showing very prominently the level of review a given article—or even a given *revision* thereof—has received, and the perceived level of quality involved, is a good thing. The Wikipedia 1.0 assessment system (Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA…) seems to serve as a decent start for that sort of thing. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we really need levels 1 to 10 for articles. It seems already to be hard to get an A, fairly much impossible to get GA for an average topic, and as we know only 1 in 1000 is FA (in round terms). And expert review = FA+ is another quite defensible level. I think cutting to the chase, setting substub = 1 and reviewed FA = 10 might be a great timesaver, and help a process in which less mystique attached to the whole business. Rebooting with FA = 9 sounds quite fun. 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] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
On 27 April 2010 20:50, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Nihiltres wrote: snip I strongly believe that showing very prominently the level of review a given article—or even a given *revision* thereof—has received, and the perceived level of quality involved, is a good thing. The Wikipedia 1.0 assessment system (Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA…) seems to serve as a decent start for that sort of thing. If we are honest with ourselves, we would admit that we really need levels 1 to 10 for articles. It seems already to be hard to get an A, fairly much impossible to get GA for an average topic, and as we know only 1 in 1000 is FA (in round terms). And expert review = FA+ is another quite defensible level. I think cutting to the chase, setting substub = 1 and reviewed FA = 10 might be a great timesaver, and help a process in which less mystique attached to the whole business. Rebooting with FA = 9 sounds quite fun. I realised a few months ago that it had been ages since I'd actually done anything significant in the main namespace, so I decided to have a go at writing an article. With a little help from someone that turned up and started improving the article (in true wiki-fashion), I got it to GA fairly easily. It was at best an average topic - it was my local (about 700 year old) church. FAC is very difficult to get through, but GA is entirely doable. I think adding more levels would make the distinctions more arbitrary, which seems like a bad thing to me. I think we should remove a level, in fact. The current system at the top with A, GA and FA is very confusing. I think GA and A should be merged somehow (perhaps just get rid of A). ___ 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] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] infobox growth
From: Julia Kasmire j.kasm...@tudelft.nl
Could you tell me, or tell me how to find, the following:
the date of the first infobox on wikipedia?
the rate of increase in infoboxes, or at least the number of infoboxes
at several points in time and the date that number was measured?
These are difficult questions.
One answer can be found at
[[Wikipedia:Database reports/Templates with the most transclusions]]. On
April 22, the generic Infobox template [[Template:Infobox]] was
transcluded on 566,270 pages. This counts both direct and indirect
transclusions. Most infoboxes use this template; unfortunately, some of
the most common don't.
The two most common specific infobox templates are [[Template:Infobox
Settlement]] (202k uses) and [[Template:Taxobox]] (155k uses). Neither
of these use [[T:Infobox]], as you can check for yourself by clicking on
edit/view source, and checking the list of transcluded pages at the
bottom.
The database report on transclusions is kept up to date by a bot twice
per month. You have to check for yourself at which date certain
infoboxes started using [[T:Infobox]].
Older data is difficult to obtain. You may be able to parse database
dumps of the entire wikipedia, to see how many articles contain the
string {{Infobox or {{Taxobox. (I think taxoboxes are the only
common infoboxes that don't have a name starting with Infobox.)
The oldest infoboxes predate [[T:Infobox]], and even templates
themselves; they will be very hard to count. The earliest infobox I
found was at [[Beryllium]], on 2 Feb 2002. It wasn't called Infobox
then, of course, but it certainly was one.
Eugene
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Re: [WikiEN-l] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
On 27 April 2010 21:33, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Well, the research I remember says the transition from B to A makes the most difference to the reader. So I would make that central to any system: from 5 to 6, say. I have seen perfectly decent articles labelled Start - I mean articles with say five paras of solid, verifiable factual information. I doubt standards are even across the wiki, but if those are Start there have to be a couple of rungs on the ladder below that.; or Start = 3. I see that mathematics uses B+ anyway, so that the lower side has five grades already. There does seem to be some problem with A right now, but abolishing it in such a fashion to reduce incentives to push articles up would really be a bad idea (whatever your anecdotal example says). But what is the difference between A and GA? Really, it's minimal (I think A-class requires the content to be essentially complete, GA just requires it to cover all the main points, which isn't much different). You talk about the transition from B to A - is most of that difference to readers between B and GA or between GA and A (I know the ordering isn't perfect, but any A-class article should be able to pass GA with only minimal changes)? I suspect it is between B and GA, so getting rid of A wouldn't have any significant impact. One alternative is to scrap the entire system and replace it with a points system. We have a few categories like completeness, style, images, references, etc. and an article gets a certain number of points in each category depending on how good it is. Once an article has the maximum points in each category, it is ready for FAC, which basically is just to confirm the assessment was accurate (the categories should be set up with the FA criteria in mind). This would mean people working on the article know what areas need more work, it gives an incentive to even fairly small improvements and it removes the arbitrary distinctions between different classes of article. ___ 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] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
Thomas Dalton wrote: On 27 April 2010 21:33, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Well, the research I remember says the transition from B to A makes the most difference to the reader. So I would make that central to any system: from 5 to 6, say. I have seen perfectly decent articles labelled Start - I mean articles with say five paras of solid, verifiable factual information. I doubt standards are even across the wiki, but if those are Start there have to be a couple of rungs on the ladder below that.; or Start = 3. I see that mathematics uses B+ anyway, so that the lower side has five grades already. There does seem to be some problem with A right now, but abolishing it in such a fashion to reduce incentives to push articles up would really be a bad idea (whatever your anecdotal example says). But what is the difference between A and GA? Really, it's minimal (I think A-class requires the content to be essentially complete, GA just requires it to cover all the main points, which isn't much different). You talk about the transition from B to A - is most of that difference to readers between B and GA or between GA and A (I know the ordering isn't perfect, but any A-class article should be able to pass GA with only minimal changes)? I suspect it is between B and GA, so getting rid of A wouldn't have any significant impact. [[Talk:Go (game)/GA2]] is the only GA review I have ever looked at: it has many comments (measurements in both metric and imperial, for example) that ar far from your summary. 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] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
On 27 April 2010 23:14, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Thomas Dalton wrote: On 27 April 2010 21:33, Charles Matthews charles.r.matth...@ntlworld.com wrote: Well, the research I remember says the transition from B to A makes the most difference to the reader. So I would make that central to any system: from 5 to 6, say. I have seen perfectly decent articles labelled Start - I mean articles with say five paras of solid, verifiable factual information. I doubt standards are even across the wiki, but if those are Start there have to be a couple of rungs on the ladder below that.; or Start = 3. I see that mathematics uses B+ anyway, so that the lower side has five grades already. There does seem to be some problem with A right now, but abolishing it in such a fashion to reduce incentives to push articles up would really be a bad idea (whatever your anecdotal example says). But what is the difference between A and GA? Really, it's minimal (I think A-class requires the content to be essentially complete, GA just requires it to cover all the main points, which isn't much different). You talk about the transition from B to A - is most of that difference to readers between B and GA or between GA and A (I know the ordering isn't perfect, but any A-class article should be able to pass GA with only minimal changes)? I suspect it is between B and GA, so getting rid of A wouldn't have any significant impact. [[Talk:Go (game)/GA2]] is the only GA review I have ever looked at: it has many comments (measurements in both metric and imperial, for example) that ar far from your summary. Sorry, that bit in brackets wasn't meant to be a summary of the criteria for each class, it was a description of the difference between the classes. Each has lots of other criteria, but they are essentially the same for both. ___ 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] Expert feedback on Featured Articles
Nihiltres wrote: (Pardon me if I'm doing something wrong regarding the mailing list, I'm a newbie to posting despite lurking for some time) David Lindsey wrote: Finally, though this idea failed to gain any real traction on wiki, I would like to state my support for the idea of adding a fifth criterion to WP:WIAFA: 5. The article, if possible, has been reviewed by an external subject-matter expert. Even if no such criterion is added, though, I would like to emphasize that it will always, or nearly always, be productive to attempt to find an expert reviewer. /snip Yes, expert reviewers are generally a good thing. I think that there might be some trouble with controversial articles (if the expert is slanted one way or another, a review correcting mistakes might not be helpful to NPOV). The dubiousness of Citizendium's homeopathy article makes a good example. +1 I don't currently believe that expert review should be added as a criterion for Featured articles, however, because of the classic problems with experts. First, how would the interactions/credentials be verified? I can just imagine it now: I'm submitting this article 'Unobtainium synthesis' to FAC because I think it meets the criteria. Also, the article got an excellent rating on review by Dr. L. Olfake, which she emailed to me the other day. (In case you didn't catch it: lol fake) Second, how do we avoid Citizendium-like problems? (This is certainly an issue, see also the earlier Citizendium dead? thread in this list) Third, would it add systemic bias, or extra hurdles to the process, as Charles Matthews mentions? I'll stop touting the issues, because that's not quite helpful, but there are significant problems with integrating expert review that we ought to address (if not solve) before making it remotely mandatory. If we were to integrate expert review, I'd start it as another *layer* of Wikipedia. I strongly believe that showing very prominently the level of review a given article—or even a given *revision* thereof—has received, and the perceived level of quality involved, is a good thing. The Wikipedia 1.0 assessment system (Stub, Start, C, B, A, GA, FA…) seems to serve as a decent start for that sort of thing. (In the long run, I'd love to see some system integrating this with some addition to the planned patrolled revisions feature that adds passive flags to revisions.) If we were to bolt on an expert review process to the Featured article system, why not make it a new level? I can imagine it now: FA+. Take a community FA, and give it a (reasonably verified) expert review, and if all outstanding issues are addressed, call it an FA+ instead. Granted, this involves all sorts of instruction creep, but it's just a starting idea. A practical implementation is left as an exercise for the reader. ;) I think that expert review is a good idea (we like expert participation as long as they're not jerks about it), but I'm cautious about its feasibility in Wikipedia as an official process. /ramble First let me just say generally pretty much every word in your ramble is genuinely insightful. Let me share some thoughts it inspired in myself. To me it seems people who could be tapped for outside input to wikipedia, even when they are people who generally don't want to edit wikipedia actively themselves, shouldn't be limited to academics by any means. Think journalists and professional people in their field doing work as an ordinary day job just as two examples. I wouldn't limit such input into a single mold either. There could be one system developed for just quickly checking a single fact and asking if they could point to an authoritative source which could be cited in the article. Somebody who knows their shit might have things right handy, and not mind telling what it is, so long as they don't have to insert it into wikipedia themselves, and watch over it to make sure it stays put. Another system might be recruit such folks to give an impartial summary overview of what problems if any kind a specific article in their field might have, be it bias, unbalance of coverage, facts missing, surfeit of inessential information stuffed in, or simple errors of fact. I do agree that in no way should this kind of system be married to the FA process, for the reason that I don't think there is grounds for limiting it to articles on that level, and of course it would add a new hurdle to the FA process if it was absollutely mandatory, and new hurdles the FA process doesn't really need. And necessarily the resulting summary view of the article could *never* be thought to be genuinely authoritative; that would just be outright impossible. I think somebody said of economics as a science that if you ask for an opinion on a question on their field from 3 experts, you get 7 opinions. The only way you could remotely make that work is if you had for each field a full _panel_
Re: [WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] infobox growth
On Tue, Apr 27, 2010 at 9:55 PM, Eugene van der Pijll eug...@vanderpijll.nl wrote: snip The oldest infoboxes predate [[T:Infobox]], and even templates themselves; they will be very hard to count. The earliest infobox I found was at [[Beryllium]], on 2 Feb 2002. It wasn't called Infobox then, of course, but it certainly was one. Wow. Hard-coded into the wikitext, I presume? The questioner might be asking when the first templates were created, and might not realised that the same thing can be done direct with using templates. When did the template namespace start, anyway? 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
