field-notes
or=Wikimedia-l m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051019 kw=alternative
Some of you know that I (LA2) am the founder of Project Runeberg, a website (runeberg.org) where we scan old books from Sweden, Denmark, Finland, Norway, and Iceland, including several works that are recycled for Wikipedia. In promoting the way we work, my biggest obstacle is that the world at large is so unwilling to learn Swedish. You don't know what you're missing!
or= m=November 12 y=2005 r=20051112 kw=alternative
By `gnowledge' we mean the knowledge accessible freely for the community in general, and to the users of the WWW in particular. We expect that the `g' in the term `gnowledge' is pronounced hard, and is not silent as `k' in `knowledge'. The possible Sanskrit and Greek roots of the term `knowledge' and the ideal of GNU to share knowledge in general and software knowledge in particular inspired us to use this term.
At this site we will publish gnowledge, and software to manage gnowledge. We desire to make this a community portal for those who believe in sharing. We also wish to build a semantic grid of gnowledge servers that participate in providing gnowledge to the community.
j=Business Week m=October 9 y=1997 r=20060213 kw=alternative
Safra and his team will need to move fast. Since 1990, the privately held company has lost money in almost every year. Estimated sales in the fiscal year ended Sept. 30 were about $325 million, just half their level at the 1990 peak, with any profits from a turnaround several years away at best. Safra's challenge is enormous. As book sales were falling--they're down 83% since 1990--the company's cash-strapped management was slow to move into electronic media. It all but ceded the market to aggressive upstarts such as Microsoft Corp.'s Encarta. While the software giant offered cut-rate deals on its Encarta CD-ROM or gave it away free with personal computers, Britannica continued to market its book to consumers for about $1,500 a set--almost as much as an entire personal computer.
Meanwhile, Safra is hoping to attract a wider, hipper audience with the Oct. 14 debut of the Britannica Internet search engine that will compete with Yahoo! Inc. and others. Screened by a staff of 30 Britannica editors, the Britannica Internet Guide promises to function as a sort of Net quality police:
One big misstep: selling the company's Compton unit, a CD-ROM pioneer, for $57 million in 1993. Britannica also made a misguided and unprofitable diversification into after-school reading centers. So powerful was the hold of Britannica's old direct-to-home sales force on the culture that when the first Britannica CD-ROM was finally introduced in 1994, it was priced at a staggering $1,200, more than four times Encarta's sticker price.
j=E-Commerce Today n=18 m=October 29 y=1998 r=20060213 kw=alternative
Tim Pethick, MD, Encyclopaedia Britannica International, told the E-Business Symposium in Melbourne this week that even though the amount of information produced has risen dramatically in the last three decades (60% of all books ever published in the western world have been published since the 1960s, he says) the emergence of the internet had forced his organisation to fight for its life. In 1991, Encyclopaedia Britannica sold about 400,000 encyclopedia sets internationally; this year it sold 10,000. "We were caught napping by the information age," Pethick said.
j=CNNMoney.com m=September 1 y=2006 r=20060830 12:44 UTC kw=alternative
On Yahoo Answers, anyone can ask any question, from the inane to the articulate, and get a response from, well, just about anyone. For free. It's a MySpace for know-it-alls and the perpetually clueless.
j=Ross Mayfield's Weblog m=September 06 y=2006 r=20060907 12:37 UTC kw=alternative
I believe the Wired Wiki experiment can be called a success, and yesterday I would have said it was doomed. Just came back from Wiki Wednesday, where Wired reporter Ryan Singel held a conversation about it.
j=Constructing the Digital Universe m=September 06 y=2006 r=20060907 12:37 UTC kw=alternative
The second challenge is actually writing a good book using a wiki. Good luck with that. I have yet to see it done. What I would like to see (perhaps someone can give me a pointer) is a long, meaty, thoughtful discussion explaining why using wikis to write good books could be made to work. I mean, it’s obvious that wikis can be used to write long, connected series of text. People can slap the label “book” on the result and feel warm fuzzies. But, given that most books are bad, it would be astonishing if long, connected series of text generated by wikis had much of a chance of producing anything that anyone would take the trouble actually to read. The problem, folks, is how to use a wiki to write a book that is really worth reading.
or=wikien-l m=September 22 y=2006 r=20060922 kw=alternative
The EoE seems to be the only special topic encyclopedia that does not cover its own topic itself. There is an article about the <a href="http://www.eoearth.org/article/Crude_Oil_Windfall_Profit_Tax_Act_of_1980,_United_States">http://www.eoearth.org/article/Crude_Oil_Windfall_Profit_Tax_Act_of_1980,_United_States</a> but nothing about Earth (...yet).
or=wikipedia-l m=October 15 y=2006 r=20061015 kw=alternative
I would like to gather from the community some examples of works you would like to see made free, works that we are not doing a good job of generating free replacements for, works that could in theory be purchased and freed.
or=wikien-l m=January 18 y=2007 r=20070118 kw=alternative
"After seeing the widespread support for the suggestion that we try *not* forking Wikipedia--i.e., that we delete all articles that are not marked "CZ Live"--I am about to instruct our tech team to go ahead and make the deletion...This experiment represents a reconception of our project's basic aim. If the experiment goes well, no longer will we be calling ourselves a "fork of Wikipedia." We will have, exclusively, our own identity and our own articles. We will still, to be sure, follow much of the Wikipedia process--the aspects that work. But no longer will we have as our central aim the cleaning up and approval of Wikipedia articles. I think it might prove easier and more pleasant to build fresh new stables than to clean out the Augean Stables of Wikipedia."
j=Slashdot m=December 22 y=2005 r=20060822 20:32 UTC kw=alternative
universe and ufo
This is old news. Joe Firmage was the founder, CEO, and Chief Strategist for USWeb. USWeb eventually became USWeb/CKS and then marchFIRST, and then in spectacular ejaculation of curiously misguided recruiting commercials.... *poof*.
Joe got out when the gettin' was good, so to speak. At age 28 and worth hundreds of million$, he stepped down from his position shortly after the CKS deal to pursue the truth about UFO's.
In fact he wrote a rather lengthy online book about his theories, called "The Truth". Look for it.
bt=SSP 29th Annual Meeting at the Palace Hotel: Imagining the future: scholarly communication 2.0 kw=alternative l=San Francisco, CA y=2007 r=20070615
A keynote in which the author reviews differences between online reference works (Encyclopedia Life, Citizendium, Wikipedia, Scholarpedia, Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy) and what they might look like in 2017. Provides eight maxims for successful projects, and pushes for collaboratively review, supplementary class material, and outlined collation projects
2 Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy and Nupedia are slow; Encyclopedia Earth is collaborative, Scholarpedia is new
2 In fact, without the influence of Nupedia, Wikipedia became actually contemptuous of expertise. Moreover, they didn’t require the use of real names, and they never developed any effective ways of reining in abusive behavior.
3 Encyclopedia of Earth: not very accessible
3 stipulates that the larger the better, but the more experts and better the community, also the better
4 it's always important to simplify workflow
4 energize a collaborative community: don't sign articles (needs to possessiveness), promiscuous editing, and he is an open content license
4 ... has made me a heretic in the Web 2.0 world...
4 So here is a run-down of the lessons learned from the free encyclopedia projects listed above:
5 advertising versus pay for play
5 ideas for projects: Collabra literature reviews, supplementary class materials, outline and collation
j=arstechnica m=February 25 y=2007 r=20070226 14:14 UTC kw=alternative
Sanger, who says that he "literally quiver[s] with excitement" when he thinks about the possibilities of open and collaborative content, wants to make it quite clear that he is not denigrating the wisdom of the unwashed masses. Citizendium will not be a dictatorship of experts but will create a space for "gentle expert guidance" that Wikipedia does not. Sanger summed up his approach in an October speech at SDForum in San Jose, arguing the thesis that "experts can play special roles in Web 2.0 projects without 'breaking' such projects."
or=wikien-l m=February 23 y=2007 r=20070223 kw=alternative
The site has a sort of split personality, but part of it is supposed to be a learn-by-doing exercise for teenaged students--Christian homeschooled students, but that's beside the point. The idea is that by trying to write encyclopedia articles about the subjects they're studying, they'll learn about them.
j=Citizendium Blog m=October 17 y=2007 r=20071017 13:43 UTC kw=alternative
Some months ago, I announced here the start of the non-profit, free, international Citizendium (”the Citizens’ Compendium”). “CZ” as we call it is a wiki and a general encyclopedia project. Since first announcing the project, it occurred to me that many of you may have not seen its point. So I wanted to describe the project’s interesting niche. What makes it different from other projects, and why should philosophers join in?
j=Citizendium Blog m=December 04 y=2007 r=20071205 13:31 UTC kw=alternative
... I felt inspired to reach out to the Wikipedia community and invite those of you who are seriously disaffected to give the Citizendium (http://www.citizendium.org/) another look. In case you took seriously a certain article about us in the Wikipedia Signpost last summer, let’s just say that wishful reports of our demise were greatly exaggerated. Since then, we’ve nearly doubled our number of articles and our activity; our growth has been accerating, and recently, we’ve had a great growth spurt. Obviously, we’re still small, but we’ve got an excellent opportunity to replicate Wikipedia-style growth.
or=wikipedia-l m=December 14 y=2007 r=20071214 kw=alternative
There has been a lot of blog buzz charting this as a possible competitor to Wikipedia. And at first it seemed quite real, and honestly, quite frightening to me. But if you read the post carefully, I don't think that ideas such as "For many topics, there will likely be competing knols on the same subject." and "...will include the opinions and points of view of the authors." sounds like a competition for a source of reliable information. To get reliable info, students and other people who are looking for "the first thing someone who searches for this topic for the first time will want to read" aren't going to want to read ten different articles on the Holocaust to get the full perspective. They need one, comprehensive unbiased source for an introduction.
> I really don't think communication is too much to ask for, and I don't understand why I'm being publicly derided by Jimmy Wales for asking for it.
or=wikien-l m=January 07 y=2007 r=20070107 kw=apologize
Forgiveness does not require any admission of wrong. If you insist that the other person admit wrong you aren't really forgiving, because you ignore the possibility that you may be the one who is wrong. Forgiveness does not even require that the dispute be first resolved.
So you simply remove everything that you disagree with? We were still on topic. This is not a spirit of cooperation! Salva31
I'm sorry Salva but I do not think that your comments to this talk page really qualify either as in "a spirit of cooperation". I think that you have been guilty of many of those things you are accusing others of.
You have broken the above rules in several ways:
You've insulted people by the tone you've used in discussion.
You've tried to intimidate those who don't agree with you by the shear volume of your text (on the talk page).
You've not been civil or calm with your edits.
As such although I have criticised others for deleting much of your text in which you do these things I would support them in moving all such material to a subpage in future. Barnaby dawson 09:00, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Let's not do that. As long as Salva 31 keeps it short and simple and on topic, there shouldn't be a problem in future, right? Kim Bruning 10:30, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Also, to be fair to Salva, I was pretty uncivil to him, I think. Graft 12:02, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
Thank you, Graft. This is obviously a debate that is sensitive on both sides. Likewise, I owe you an apology for the contributions I made in escalating the argument.Salva3109:37, 13 Apr 2005 (UTC)
or=Wikimedia-l m=March 01 y=2006 r=20060301 kw=apologize
snippy response on ipr issue
I agree (and sorry for being so unspecific and harsh). I guess what bothers me is the tone of urgency: Balmer's done a service for wikipedia (though also for himself, since he's collecting donations =) ) and it's important to encourage that kind of thing.
or=wikien-l m=September 13 y=2007 r=20070913 kw=apologize
I've let that spill over into too many posts today. I apologise for my tone & assure you that I'm not normally QUITE this abrasive. I plan on either going back to bed or going out to clear my head, and won't be posting again until I feel capable of much greater civility.
or=Wikimedia-l m=August 24 y=2005 r=20050824 kw=analysis
Cormac Lawler invented a simple but interesting wikimetric method to measure the importance of different guidelines in a Wiki community: Just count the number of links to it! That's citation analysis isn't it? :-) Well, you don't really measure the importance but the number of times Wikipedians refer to a specific rule. Here is how to do it:
or=wikien-l m=September 22 y=2005 r=20050922 kw=analysis
The "credibility battle" has a distinct trendline: Since November 2004 I've been capturing two automated news feeds generated by Google News alerts on citations of the Wikipedia and "that other encyclopedia"(E. Britannica).
As the items dribbled in, I eliminated those which were "about" the 'pedias and kept those which "cited" the pedias. **
Here are the results :
>From 11/7/2004 to 9/21/2004, citations appearing in an arbitrarily selected group of news publications [Pubs indexed by Google News] count as follows:***
Wikipedia: 412 ****
Encyclopedia Britannica: 73
Ratio of roughly 5.6 to 1. Call it 11 to 2 for integer only CPU's :)
WP is leading handsomely.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060623 20:39 UTC kw=analysis
Wikipedia surpassed Brockhaus and Encarta in a expert based rating of the three encyclopedias over the variables of technical correctness, completeness, and comprehensibility.
An article comparing WP to Brockhaus and Encarta appeared in issue 21/04 of c't, a major German computer engineering magazine. It is titled Lexika: Wikipedia gegen Brockhaus und Encarta, starting on p. 132.
The three were tested on breadth, depth, and comprehensibility of content, ease of searching, and quality of multimedia content.
Content wsa divided into 3 fields, and subdivided into subject areas; experts rated on 1-5 on technical correctness, completeness, and comprehensibility
The net result: Wikipedia ran away with the top prize, a comfortable distance ahead of its stately predecessors. "Brockhaus Premium surpassed the competition from Redmond," the review reported, "but must however concede defeat to Wikipedia".
j=Joho the Blog m= November 1 y=2005 r=20060822 20:36 UTC kw=analysis
Here are the numbers I heard from the horse's mouth (Jimmy Wales speaking at a library meeting) last Friday:
so that "500-1500 people wrote the English Wikipedia". Hmm, that second stat looks a bit odd, but that's what I wrote down.
Though I'm not sure what time period these stats are taken from.
j=Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought m=September 04 y=2006 r=20060904 13:37 UTC kw=analysis
When you put it all together, the story become clear: an outsider makes one edit to add a chunk of information, then insiders make several edits tweaking and reformatting it. In addition, insiders rack up thousands of edits doing things like changing the name of a category across the entire site -- the kind of thing only insiders deeply care about. As a result, insiders account for the vast majority of the edits. But it's the outsiders who provide nearly all of the content.
j=Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought m=September 14 y=2006 r=20060914 13:37 UTC kw=analysis
Building a community is pretty tough; it requires just the right combination of technology and rules and people. And while it's been clear that communities are at the core of many of the most interesting things on the Internet, we're still at the very early stages of understanding what it is that makes them work.
j=Nonbovine Ruminations m=September 06 y=2006 r=20060922 17:34 UTC kw=analysis
Notes that Seth was doing similar work presented at Wikimania. Noe the title of her blog entry: insider/outsider distinction?
j=news@nature.com m=February 27 y=2007 r=20070301
A summary of research which finds that the best Wikipedia articles are edited often by many different contributors. Also, since 2004 when the percentage of edits done by elite contributors had reached 50%, their percentage has declined to just 10%.
j=Andrew Lih Blog kw=analysis m=June 28 y=2007 r=20070629
Provides a graph that shows since September-October 2006 the growth rate a Wikipedia has dropped. The author asks for possible causes (e.g., governance, scale ("tragedy of the commons"), near completion), and possible implications (quality).
j=The Guardian m=October 24 y=2005 r=20051027 kw=authority
Experts commenting on particular entries, including Robert McHenry who was editor-in-chief of the Encyclopedia Britannica from 1992 to 1997 commenting on the encyclopedias article
discussion
or=wikien-l m=October 27 y=2005 r=20051027 kw=authority
relative comparisons
Andrew, The Encarta article has 563 words with internal links but no external links. If you use the MSN search tool, you get access to Encarta pages relevant to your search. I copied the article into Word and did a word count. I think we can rate Wikipedia the winner in terms of content in that exercise. It would be interesting to do a comparative test on all of the articles listed in the Guardian article.
or=wikien-l m=November 19 y=2005 r=20051119 kw=authority
The academics at my uni think the wikipedia is mildly offensive, in the sense that they enjoy being paid to write books/journals/whathaveyou, and don't enjoy seeing amateurs giving it away for free. Because of this, and our noticable failings, students are penalised if they attempt to cite the wikipedia as a source at my uni.
or=wikien-l m=November 26 y=2005 r=20051126 kw=authority
Jimmy Wales <jwales@wikia.com> wrote: That's exactly what I always say. We strive to be (and sometimes, but not yet nearly as much as we'd like) Britannica or better quality. But even at that level of quality, frankly, it's just not appropriate to cite any encyclopedia at the university level. That's not the role of an encyclopedia in the process.
or=wikien-l m=November 30 y=2005 r=20051130 kw=authority
Blogs and webforums have more rigorous requirements to leave remarks than we do. I acknowledge that most anonymous editors contribute in good faith but many do not. Further, the cost of cleaning up after the ones who do not detracts from the main work of writing the encyclopedia. I am not calling for credentialism but registering as a user.
or=wikien-l m=November 30 y=2005 r=20051130 kw=authority
A project with two equally important goals that are utterly incompatible by definition -- why was it launched in the first place? Wouldn't any rational observer have seen a result like this as not only possible but likely, if not inevitable?
or=AIR m=December 06 y=2005 r=20051206 kw=authority
Call not to use WP in class because of Seigenthaler incident
Dear Colleagues,
This letter is a suggestion that you address the problem of bad information in student papers from an increasingly poor source: Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not getting better. It is getting worse. One reason for this is the apparent case that the status of Wikipedia as a much-used reference resource makes it the target of opportunity for hoax efforts that would never enter an edited reference text.
There are now enough serious incidents of false and defamatory information in Wikipedia biographies to warrant prohibiting this as a reference source in universities and university-level professional schools. The same is true of inaccurate or false assertions in many articles.
The problem with Wikipedia is not that the Wiki system MAY develop a solid and reliable reference work, but that in the current form, it DOES NOT. It is as easy to change an article for the worse as for the better.
The current scandal concerning a false and defamatory biography of Robert Kennedy aide and friend John Siegenthaler (see below) and similar recent cases lead me to conclude that Wikipedia has no way to prevent problems like this from happening. This is made worse by the fact that Wikipedia is an automatic flow-through resource for other on-line sources.
Wikipedia is unacceptable as a research tool. I have informed my students that they may no longer use Wikipedia as a reference or source on papers in my courses. I urge you to consider a similar statement. While Wikipedia may be a useful first step in seeking information, I no longer accept it as a credible source. Therefore, I advise students to look further when a project requires a reliable source.
Use of Wikipedia by students and researchers is an important validation mechanism for Wikipedia. If enough of us prohibit Wikipedia as a reference source in our courses, programs, and schools, the message will eventually get through.
When it does, Wikipedia will find an appropriate way to monitor contributions. If they do not, the reputation of Wikipedia will sink to that of another crank web site.
j=New York Times m=March 14 y=2006 r=20060314 kw=authority
Jeff Bates, a vice president of the Open Source Technology Group who oversees SourceForge.net, the host of more than 80,000 active open-source projects, said, "It makes me grind my teeth to hear Wikipedia compared to open source." In every open-source project, he said, there is "a benevolent dictator" who ultimately takes responsibility, even though the code is contributed by many. Good stuff results only if "someone puts their name on it."
Mr. Wales is not happy with this pace and seems open to looking again at the open-source software model for ideas. Software development that relies on scattered volunteers is a two-step process: first, a liberal policy encourages the contributions of many, then a restrictive policy follows to stabilize the code in preparation for release. Wikipedia, he said, has "half the model."
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=authority
historical research
The use of technically unpublished archival materials recovered from an official archivist has come up recently on Hopkins Schools' FAC. Wikipedia:Reliable sources' opening sentence states that "Wikipedia articles should use reliable published sources," but archival materials often aren't technically "published" as they are for the school/organization's own history and are most certainly reliable if recovered from the archivist him/herself. In addition, the definition of primary sources under Wikipedia:No original research includes historical documents (which I would think archival information is), and since the materials were researched by the archivist they are not OR. I believe that under Wikipedia:Interpret all rules one should be able to interpret WP:RS as including unpublished archival materials as a reliable source. Staxringold 14:16, 29 March 2006 (UTC)
j=Guardian Unlimited Technology m=April 13 y=2006 r=20060414 14:51 UTC kw=authority
This gradual deterioration afflicts any utopian online space, and Skip ruefully notes even the best Wikipedia work - its catalogue of featured articles of the week - degenerates once out of the spotlight.
Britannica's president Jorge Cauz identifies a homogeneity online he finds unsettling. "Internet discourse has the ability to negate the diversity of voices, and no one can differentiate between truth and myth," he says.
"It's a hall of mirrors," agrees Michael Gorman, the Briton who is president of the American Library Association (ALA), "and it's very addictive."
or=wikien-l m=July 09 y=2006 r=20060709 kw=authority
I always find it mildly amusing -- and disturbing -- how conservative and, dare I say it, naive Wikipedia can be when it comes to comparing old media with the Internet. Every printed source is held up as a symbol of journalistic integrity, and a guy in Ohio hacking up a moderate article about some website 2 hours before the deadline is considered, per WP:WEB, to make the thing more notable than a hundred blogs with thousands of readers, because he's a "reliable source." Con artists like Stephen Glass or Jayson Blair must have been evil geniuses to pass through the firewalls of fact checking built by the New Republic or the New York Times.
or=wikien-l m=July 13 y=2006 r=20060713 kw=authority
"Wow. This has got to be one of the worst news stories of all time. It doesn't make sense that it was even written, much less published. And much, much less the fact that it mentions Wikipedia and tries to pass it off as valid news."
So Wikipedia can get confused because inital reports were varied about the cause of Lay's death, but Reuters can't even identify who gave them the information they used in their report?
And journalism has sunk to a new low.
j=Inside Higher Ed m=January 26 y=2007 r=20070126 20:05 UTC kw=authority
the history department at Middlebury College is trying to take a stronger, collective stand. It voted this month to bar students from citing the Web site as a source in papers or other academic work. All faculty members will be telling students about the policy and explaining why material on Wikipedia — while convenient — may not be trustworthy.
j=New York Times m=January 29 y=2007 r=20070129 20:45 UTC kw=authority
The reaction from the court above her, the United States Court of Federal Claims, was direct: the materials “culled from the Internet do not — at least on their face — meet” standards of reliability. The court reversed her decision.
Oddly, to cite the “pervasive, and for our purposes, disturbing series of disclaimers” concerning the site’s accuracy, the same Court of Federal Claims relied on an article called “Researching With Wikipedia” found — where else? — on Wikipedia. (The family has reached a settlement, their lawyer said.)
1) Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for a college paper. (or, perhaps for any paper above, say, 6th or 7th grade. Certainly, the last time I used an encyclopedia as a source for academic work was a paper I wrote on UFOs in the 6th grade).
2) It is perfectly acceptable as a starting point, and for background information. Even the Wiki folks believe that their creation is best used in conjunction with other sources, not as a stand alone resource for research-based tasks. So no one, aside from some 18-year olds trying to finish an assignment think that this is acceptable.
3) The problem with wikipedia is not that it is internet-based, and is not with its structure (Roy Rosenzweig put this to rest: Wikipedia, while perhaps uneven in its coverage, is on balance as accurate as a traditional encyclopedia).
4) Any “solution” to the wikipedia “problem” that demonizes its media (internet) or its structure (open source/wisdom of the crowds model) is missing the point, and is also incredibly short-sighted.
j=Yahoo! News m=February 13 y=2007 r=20070214 14:52 UTC kw=authority
Middlebury College history students are no longer allowed to use Wikipedia in preparing class papers.Wikipedia in preparing class papers.
or=wikien-l m=March 02 y=2007 r=20070302 kw=authority
Yes, if he thought it was necessary to create a fake identity to protect himself then he should have given his alter ego an educational level similar to his own and a job at more or less the same social status as his real job.
or=wikien-l m=March 02 y=2007 r=20070302 kw=authority
Now, pseudonyms e.g. of authors are sometimes mildly deceptive, as when a pulp \ magazine wants its readers to think that they have an "exclusive" on an author, when \ in fact the stories are the production of a prolific writer who churns out content \ for all of them. Or when an author wants to maintain a separation between his serious \ work and his mystery novels.
j=Citizendium Blog m=March 01 y=2007 r=20070302 19:12 UTC kw=authority
Of course, the moniker “Essjay” is obviously a pseudonym. But Essjay’s invented persona, as the New Yorker described it, or in other words his lies about being a different person, cannot be regarded as a pseudonym by anyone who knows what “pseudonym” means. A pseudonym, or pen name, is just a name, not an identity. Responsible publications that permit pseudonyms don’t permit misrepresentation of the actual qualifications of the person with the pseudonym. That would be a breach of the readers’ trust. That of course is why The New Yorker felt it had to apologize.
For Jimmy not to “have a problem with” Essjay’s identity fraud is essentially for him to declare: you can falsely claim all sorts of credentials you like on Wikipedia, and not have them. Truth-telling about yourself really doesn’t matter on Wikipedia, and credentials (of course) don’t matter either. Perhaps we already knew this. But nothing has ever more eloquently illustrated it.
m=March 03 y=2007 r=20070303 18:07 UTC kw=authority
I have asked EssJay to resign his positions of trust within the community. In terms of the full parameters of what happens next, I advise (as usual) that we take a calm, loving, and reasonable approach. From the moment this whole thing became known, EssJay has been contrite and apologetic. People who characterize him as being "proud" of it or "bragging" are badly mistaken.
Wikipedia is built on (among other things) twin pillars of trust and tolerance. The integrity of the project depends on the core community being passionate about quality and integrity, so that we can trust each other. The harmony of our work depends on human understanding and forgiveness of errors.
or=wikien-l m=March 03 y=2007 r=20070303 kw=authority
Why not? And why would you suppose if you for example tried to pass yourself off as a Th.D that people who actually are wouldn't find certain things odd about what you say? This entire charge against Essjay falls under the pseudonym issue, and of course is entirely ironic that most of the critics happen to be either disgruntled (Kelly) or themselves anonymous. The issue is between Essjay and the New Yorker. We dont have a personnel screening policy. The onus was on the Pulitzer prize winning author to check her sources, not to rely on a third party.
or=wikien-l m=March 03 y=2007 r=20070303 kw=authority
Well, um, no. EssJay came by his assorted jobs by a process of working on Wikipedia for ages and having jobs land on his head for his flagrant and continued cluefulness in public. That's not credentialism, that's noticing actual ability in action.
j=New York Times m=March 05 y=2007 r=20070305 15:17 UTC kw=authority
In a blink, the wisdom of the crowd became the fury of the crowd. In the last few days, contributors to Wikipedia, the popular online encyclopedia, have turned against one of their own who was found to have created an elaborate false identity.
j=Chicago Sun-Times m=March 17 y=2007 r=20070317 21:46 UTC kw=authority
The interesting thing is WP kicked off the rumor, was corrected, but as the waves of rumor spread, people would re-add it to WP
j=The Chronicle m=March 23 y=2007 r=20070323 15:45 UTC kw=authority
Rather than banning Wikipedia, why not make studying what it does and does not do part of the research-and-methods portion of our courses? Instead of resorting to the "Delete" button for new forms of collaborative knowledge made possible by the Internet, why not make the practice of research in the digital age the object of study? That is already happening, of course, but we could do more. For example, some professors already ask students to pursue archival research for a paper and then to post their writing on a class wiki. It's just another step to ask them to post their labors on Wikipedia, where they can learn to participate in a community of lifelong learners. That's not as much a reach for students as it is for some of their professors.
or=wikien-l m=March 05 y=2007 r=20070305 kw=authority
Nowadays, I bring back the proposal for further consideration in light of the EssJay scandal. I think it imperative that we make some positive moves here... we have a real opportunity here to move the quality of Wikipedia forward by doing something that many have vaguely thought to be a reasonably good idea if worked out carefully.
j=Wikipedia Weekly n=35 m=January 22 y=2008 r=20080122 21:23 UTC kw=authority
Witty Lama interviews Awadewit about Mary Wollstonecraft, feminism, and Wikipedia's poor standing in the humanities
or=wikien-l m=September 06 y=2006 r=20060906 kw=attack
It would be nice to get some evolutionary biologists to review our entries on the respective topics systematically. I suspect there's probably a lot of creationist POV creep already. -- Peace & Love, Erik
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=bias
It is a faux pas to write about yourself, according to Jimmy Wales, Wikipedia's founder. [1]
You should wait for others to write an article about subjects in which you are personally involved. This applies to articles about you, your achievements, your business, your publications, your website, your relatives, and any other possible conflict of interest.
Wikipedia has gone through many prolonged disputes about the significance, factual accuracy, and neutrality of such articles, including one about Jimmy Wales himself [2]. Refraining from such editing is therefore important in maintaining Wikipedia's neutral stance and in avoiding the appearance of POV-pushing.
or=wikien-l m=November 15 y=2005 r=20051115 kw=bias
I suggest we say "unless there is some reason why we think he is misleading us, believe him". Unsourced accuracy actually is better than sourced inaccuracy. It's just that the wrong one conforms to policy...
j=Wired News m=December 19 y=2005 r=20051220 kw=bias
For example, on Oct. 28, he changed "On [[January 15]], [[2001]], Wales and Sanger set up [[Wikipedia]]" to "On [[January 15]], [[2001]], Wales set up [[Wikipedia]]."
"It's very neutral," he said. "The point wasn't to write Larry Sanger out of the story. I think Larry doesn't get enough credit."
Cadenhead said other Wikipedia editors described Bomis Babes as "soft-core pornography," but Wales changed it to "adult content section" on Sept. 4, and later twice removed references to pornography, instead describing it as "Bomis Babes blog based on Slashcode."
or=wikien-l m=January 30 y=2006 r=20060130 kw=bias
vanity
"This RFC concerns the behavior of editors from the United States Congress". This could possibly set a precedent for how we deal with vandalism from organisations trying to push their POV. We should probably contact someone at Congress to let them know how their reputations are being soiled on Wikipedia. I'm no good at understanding the consequences or repercussions of this, so I just think somebody involved with the Foundation (Jimbo? Angela? Anthere?) might be interested in this. Certainly we don't get vandalised by Congress everyday. :)
j=WikiNews m=February 08 y=2006 r=20060208 kw=bias
Using the public history of edits on Wikipedia, Wikinews reporters collected every Senate IP which had ever edited on Wikipedia as of February 3 and examined where the IPs came from, what they edited, and of what those edits consisted. IP, or Internet Protocol, addresses are unique numbers electronic devices use to communicate with each other on an individual basis.
The investigation showed the vast majority of edits to Wikipedia from Senate IPs were beneficial, helpful edits.
Senators' staff members have sometimes had to fight to correct inaccuracies.
Unflattering information on Biden, Burns, Coleman, Feinstein, and Harkin removed
j=openDemocracy m=May 25 y=2006 r=20060619 20:33 UTC kw=bias
A description of the Countering Systematic Bias page
As for claims that you can't trust a word it says, well, you'd certainly be foolish to trust it blindly. The same goes for Google. It's a question of using your nous: making your judgement based not merely on what it tells you, but on what you know from experience about the ways in which it might be misleading.
j=openDemocracy m=June 19 y=2006 r=20060619 20:33 UTC kw=bias
A response to the Shariatmadari article and argues that WP suffers from the lack of vision and plan to make it a coherent and balanced project -- also mentions McCabe was wrong
Bias and imbalance
Thus, when a writer called Joseph McCabe alleged in a widely distributed pamphlet that certain articles in the Encyclopedia Britannica had been unduly influenced by the Catholic church, he was charging bias. (That was in 1947, and he was quite wrong, by the way.)
Balance results from planning. As an example, the planning of the coverage of the fifteenth edition of Britannica took an in-house staff and dozens of advisers several years to complete. That was forty years ago; it would be harder now.
Truth and openness
No complex project can be expected to yield satisfactory results without a clear vision of what the goal is - and here I mean what a worthy internet encyclopedia actually looks like - and a plan to reach that goal, which will include a careful inventory of the needed skills and knowledge and some meaningful measures of progress. To date, the "hive mind" of Wikipedia's "digital Maoism" (as Jaron Lanier's vigorous critique on edge.org calls it) displays none of these.
or=wikien-l m=August 24 y=2006 r=20060824 kw=bias
That's systemic bias: our Jewish contributors are very good writers, while our Nazi contributors are mostly vandals who can't understand NPOV. :-)
or=wikien-l m=December 04 y=2006 r=20061204 kw=bias
Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a number of women said they were not comfortable contributing to the discussion, a new mailing list has been created for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis and ways to encourage more female editors, and just as a place that females can feel more comfortable posting to.
or=wikien-l m=December 12 y=2006 r=20061212 kw=bias
Look at it this way: if I said to you that 300 people in the world believed that the moon was made of green cheese, and that the "moon made of rock" theory was a hoax perpetrated by the evil American government, and then created articles on Scholars for Green Cheese Truth, List of researchers supporting Moon Cheese Hypothesis, Alternate Explanations of Moon Construction, Evidence for Green Cheese Moon and so on and so on, then the whole walled garden would be gone by morning, and rightly so.
or=wikien-l m=January 16 y=2007 r=20070116 kw=bias
"I am withdrawing from Citizendium because of the racist and sexist policy put in place by Larry Sanger, who claims that the disciplines of Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies do not belong in the list of top level categories in Citizendium, or as individual categories at all. Sanger has unilaterally decided that all race and gender topics should be split up under traditional disciplinary headings, so that there will be, for example, a sub-group of "African American Literature," and "African American History," but no category -- at any level -- in African American studies, and he embraces the same tactic of fragmenting other Ethnic Studies and Gender Studies. The fact that his broad strokes of exclusion primarily effect women and minority scholars does not seem to matter to him."
j=MSNBC.com m=January 24 y=2007 r=20070207 19:35 UTC kw=bias
Kohs, 38, said he was committed to having MyWikiBiz create only legitimate Wikipedia entries — neutral, footnoted and just on companies or organizations with a sizable presence.
Wales was unswayed. But he told Kohs he could create Wikipedia-like entries for his clients on MyWikiBiz.com. Then Kohs could reach out to Wikipedia editors and see if they'd like to "scrape" the pages — use them as Wikipedia entries.
Around that time, however, Wikipedia's volunteer crews were tweaking the site's conflict-of-interest policy. As Kohs read one new rule, he could post his clients' copy on his own personal user page inside Wikipedia, rather than on MyWikiBiz.com. Presumably that would make it easier to attract Wikipedia editors' interest.
Wales was asked why it mattered if Microsoft or anyone else paid to have copy written on Wikipedia, since there's no guarantee that the site's vigorous editors and moderators would let it remain. He called that notion akin to a city with stellar trash collection telling its denizens to go ahead and litter, since the garbage wouldn't be around long.
Helium.com lets anyone write an article on a topic. But unlike at Wikipedia, one contributor doesn't overwrite another. Instead the community votes on which entries are more valuable. As a result, multiple articles on a subject appear together, with top-rated ones listed higher.
or=wikien-l m=February 01 y=2007 r=20070201 kw=bias
Clearly, I'm in the minority, but it's certainly not a small minority. I would also love to learn (if it were only possible) what the demographics are of those who responded "No way" versus those who responded "Sure". I would venture a guess that the average age and household income of those saying "Sure" is higher than those who say "No way".
j=Boing Boing m=February 26 y=2007 r=20070226 21:09 UTC kw=bias
Conservapedia, a wiki encyclopedia that aims to eliminate the left-wing bias in Wikipedia, is a gold-mine of unintentional hilarity. The entry on the cactus is especially rib-ticking.
or=Wikimedia m=March 12 y=2007 r=20070315 19:41 UTC kw=bias
This case involved Almeda University, one of a number of organizations operating in the United States that purport to offer college degrees with little or no coursework required, based on such factors as "life experience". Widely considered diploma mills, these organizations commonly have operations that are difficult to trace; they may be illegal in some jurisdictions, and their degrees are often worthless on the job market.
Last week, Wikipedia editor Randywombat reported that he came across an ad for "Wiki Requirements" on Guru.com, a site that bills itself as a marketplace for freelance talent. The ad complained of a "negative Wikipedia review" and offered to pay $50 weekly on an ongoing basis to revert changes and maintain "valid/positive comments" in the article. In response to Randywombat's follow-up, the company seeking this service was identified as Almeda University.
j=openDemocracy m=July 6 y=2007 r=20070921 20:09 UTC kw=bias
The Wikiproject seems to concern itself with topics that are treated in insufficient detail or not at all; to me, this is addressing imbalance. "Bias" denotes a lack of objectivity or fairness in the treatment of topics.
Is imbalance in Wikipedia "systemic"? I should rather say that it results inevitably from a lack of system.
or=wikien-l m=January 27 y=2006 r=20060127 kw=block
new
This seems to be ancient history. You were blocked for 24 hours for personal attacks which on investigation seem indeed to be personal attacks. Your block has been over for nearly a week now. Please just accept the lesson and avoid personal attacks and discourtesy in the future. I have not examined the entire pattern of your behavior, but be assured that new users are welcome here. I hope that after you are "broken in" you find this an agreeable environment for the exploration of established knowledge.
or=wikien-l m=September 22 y=2005 r=20050922 kw=blocking
I'm not sure, but the auto blocker seems to extend the block when someone attempts to log in and edit before the penalty period is over
or=wikien-l m=October 18 y=2005 r=20051018 kw=blocking
Personally, I think the new blocking policy (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy_proposal">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Blocking_policy_proposal</a>) will do more more harm than good. The proposal would indubitably mean the blocking (using this logged-in only registration) of most AOL IPs, Netscape IPs, school districts, public-use computers, and major corporations. By only allowing logged-in users on these IPs (since it is inevitable that all of them would either be blocked indefinitely or blocked consistently), in my opinion, is against the spirit of the Wiki - we're here to allow *anyone* to edit, not just those who want to create accounts. I believe that not allowing any anonymous editing has already been extensively discussed at the Village Pump, and soundly rejected. This blocking policy proposal would take us one step closer to not allowing any anonymous editing - AOL, school districts, and public-use computers comprise a large amount of our editing, and many are valuable editors and contributors that we may lose if this policy is implemented.
Anthony DiPierro
or=wikien-l m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051019 kw=blocking
I really can't figure out what you're arguing here, though. Because right now, when an AOL IP is blocked, you can't edit using it regardless of whether or not you register. As I understand it, the proposal is to allow logged in users to edit when they otherwise wouldn't. Sure, this might lead to admins being more liberal with IP blocks, but it doesn't require it - whether or not admins are more liberal with IP blocks is a separate issue, and we could pass policies to ensure that this doesn't happen.
j=Waste of Bandwidth m=March 28 y=2006 r=20060329 kw=blocking
There's been so much talk among educators on whether Wikipedia should be banned from school, that it may come as a surprise to some that a school has actually been banned from Wikipedia.
or=wikien-l m=September 08 y=2006 r=20060908 kw=block
Massive copyvios stretching back for months, 20 or so notices on his talk page (by bots doing good botwork).
Why was this user not banned months ago?
or=Wikimedia m=September y=2006 r=20060911 15:39 UTC kw=block kw=block
After a post on Wikipedia criticism site "Wikipedia Review", in which he discussed offering deleted article revisions containing personal information to an indefinitely blocked user, long-time contributor Everyking was desysopped on Sunday.
or=wikien-l m=December 01 y=2006 r=20061201 kw=block
Right, me too. :) The point is, if the broad philosophical question is "Do we ban people for merely holding unpleasant or unpopular beliefs?" then the answer is "no, we never have, and there seems to be very little support for doing so". If the point is "Does asserting unpleasant or unpopular beliefs automatically get you a free pass to be any sort of jerk you like, because we are planning to bend over backwards to make sure we don't ever ever ever discriminate against Nazis?" then the answer is, "no, being a disruptive troll is still being a disruptive troll."
or=Wikimedia m=November 5 y=2006 r=20070316 21:03 UTC kw=block
Historical
This proposal, based on BugZilla bug 550, aims to introduce a new level of blocking that would reduce the level of collateral damage done by blocking certain IP addresses, while at the same time reducing vandalism by allowing blocking anonymous editing from specific IP addresses that can't be satisfactorily blocked at present.
or=wikien-l m=March 27 y=2007 r=20070327 kw=block
We now have about 1500 articles in Category:Semi-protected, which new editors and IP addresses can't edit. I picked a few at random, and most I checked were entirely uncontroversial articles which had briefly had some trouble from an IP address, which was over months ago and there was no reason to believe it would ever occur again.
This is in violation of one of our basic principles. Would it not make more sense for admins to be expected to automatically make this sort of semi-protection have a time limit, assuming there was no reason to believe the article was a permanent vandal magnet?
An ever growing list of permanently semi-protected articles is not what we want, especially given that it's happening out of sheer laziness.
or=wikien-l m=October 21 y=2007 r=20071021 kw=block
Jimbo has added a reply on [[Talk:Gary Weiss]] to the effect that the block might be "a tad excessive", but he still respects it under his prior orders for "zero tolerance and shoot on sight". He's invited Durova to reduce the block or not, and will respect it either way.
or=wikien-l m=August 20 y=2005 r=20050820 kw=cabal
I have recently become aware of a matter on the very cutting edge of NPOV, wiki-cliques, and the method by which article content is ''actually'' determined. I think the matter is very stimulating, and I hope that it will inspire some healthy discussion and thought. I'll give some links:
or=wikien-l m=January 22 y=2006 r=20060122 kw=cabal
controversy over Admins understanding themselves as a distinct group
The fact that there are so many admins is one of teh key reasons why I think that such a meeting is so important. It is vital for people to get to know one another a little better and see who the active admins are. At the same time, I also think it is important that the admins be made aware of some things on a Foundation level. What should they be looking out for? How can they resolve problems effectively? What are the exact policities and when (gasp) should these policies be overlooked in the larger interest of the project? The meeting would take place on IRC as Cimon suggested. I think Fred's ideas are excellent, and we can certainly consider implementing an admin only IRC channel and mailing list. These are things that can be brought up at the meeting. I realize that the meeting will be clumsy at first because of all the people involved. I would like, however, to suggest that we try it and see how many people actually show up. We can, of course, have additional meetings as necessary, and may realize that one meeting is impractical. As a full-time Wikipedian, I will make a point of being at any meeting suggested. Suggested time, anyone? Danny
or=wikien-l m=January 24 y=2006 r=20060124 kw=cabal
press volunteering overflow
as a totally non-en person, admin on other wikis and actually working "behind the scenes", I would like to give my view on what I believe is needed, and why an en-admin-only channel and list won't help to the extent that is needed. This is long, but please bear with me.
or=wikien-l m=January 24 y=2006 r=20060124 kw=cabal
admin community and channel
Or follow me from channel to channel wanting to argue Deletion 101 ... a "discussion" I could probably conduct entirely in macros by now.
I'm still not convinced #wikipedia-en-admins is a great idea as it stands, but it *does* tend to be on-topic more often.
#wikipedia is officially not an official Wikimedia channel for all sorts of good reasons ;-)
or=wikien-l m=May 28 y=2006 r=20060528 kw=cabal
Given the attacks and outing of admins they are trying to think of how to put off the stalkers
Anyway I'm just brainstorming here. What if we had classes of admins that were "secret", but agreed not to involve themselves in edit disputes at all (eg, protecting pages, rolling back...) How can we reduce the likelihood of admins getting WR'd?
or=wikien-l m=November 27 y=2007 r=20071127 kw=cabal
So, for anyone who doesn't know, it's now come out that there was basically a citizens "militia" of sorts that created secret mailing lists where they coordinated their actions and presented secret evidence against those suspected of being affiliated with a BADSITE.
or=wikien-l m=November 27 y=2007 r=20071127 kw=cabal
*I* am involved in multiple ongoing private discussions with dozens of people. The list in question is being badly misrepresented as some kind of problem. It is a good list, and the purpose of the list is good, and not everyone on the list is perfect (as is always true).
or=wikien-l m=November 27 y=2007 r=20071127 kw=cabal
You are assuming ill faith to a quite unreasonable degree. So what if not all the arbitration committee were on the lists? It doesn't matter. Some are, and so is Jimbo, and when something stupid gets said we allow the person to work through their pain and frustration and come out the other side.
cabal+CONFIRM
Durova and Jehochman: A case involving the actions of Durova and Jehochman, and in particular a controversial block by Durova of !! as a sockpuppet, based on evidence she refused to reveal on-wiki, saying that she was concerned that to do so could give puppetmasters too much information on her investigative techniques. This evidence was provided to some administrators, and was later leaked, with some users, including the Arbitration Committee, arguing that the evidence was insufficient for blocking !!. Durova has resigned her adminship, and, in what appears to be an exceptionally quick resolution of the case, remedies have been proposed, admonishing Durova to exercise greater care when issuing blocks, admonishing all participants to act with proper decorum, and noting that Durova must go through normal channels to regain adminship.
cabal+CONFIRM
LYNCH LAW, a term loosely applied to various forms of executing rough popular justice, or what is thought to be justice, for the punishment of offenders by a summary procedure, ignoring, or even contrary to, the strict forms of law. The word lynching "originally signified a whipping for reformatory purposes with more or less disregard for its legality " ( Cutler), or the infliction of minor punishments without recourse to law; but during and after the Reconstruction Period in the United States, it came to mean, generally, the summary infliction of capital punishment .
The numerous protective societies of whites, 1865–1876, culminating in the Ku Klux movement, may be described as an application of lynch law .With the increase of negro crimes came an increase of lynchings, due to prejudice, to the fact that for some time after Reconstruction the governments were relatively weak, especially in the districts where the blacks outnumber the whites, to the fact that negroes nearly always shield criminals of their own race against the whites, and to the frequent occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men upon white women .
cabal+CONFIRM
KU KLUX KLAN, the name of an American secret association of Southern whites united for self-protection and to oppose the Reconstruction measures of the United States Congress, 1865-1876.
The various causes assigned for the origin and development of this movement were: the absence of stable government in the South for several years after the Civil War; the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the alien, renegade and negro, and the belief that it was supported by the Federal troops which controlled elections and legislative bodies; the disfranchisement of whites; the spread of ideas of social and political equality among the negroes; fear of negro insurrections; the arming of negro militia and the disarming of the whites; outrages upon white women by black men; the influence of Northern adventurers in the Freedmen's Bureau and the Union League in alienating the races; the humiliation of Confederate soldiers after they had been paroled - in general, the insecurity felt by Southern whites during the decade after the collapse of the Confederacy.
Mysterious signs and warnings were sent to disorderly negro politicians. The whites who were responsible for the conduct of the blacks were warned or driven away by social and business ostracism or by violence.
cabal+CONFIRM
LYNCH LAW, a term loosely applied to various forms of executing rough popular justice, or what is thought to be justice, for the punishment of offenders by a summary procedure, ignoring, or even contrary to, the strict forms of law. The word lynching "originally signified a whipping for reformatory purposes with more or less disregard for its legality " ( Cutler), or the infliction of minor punishments without recourse to law; but during and after the Reconstruction Period in the United States, it came to mean, generally, the summary infliction of capital punishment .
The numerous protective societies of whites, 1865–1876, culminating in the Ku Klux movement, may be described as an application of lynch law .With the increase of negro crimes came an increase of lynchings, due to prejudice, to the fact that for some time after Reconstruction the governments were relatively weak, especially in the districts where the blacks outnumber the whites, to the fact that negroes nearly always shield criminals of their own race against the whites, and to the frequent occurrence of the crime of rape by negro men upon white women .
cabal+CONFIRM
KU KLUX KLAN, the name of an American secret association of Southern whites united for self-protection and to oppose the Reconstruction measures of the United States Congress, 1865-1876.
The various causes assigned for the origin and development of this movement were: the absence of stable government in the South for several years after the Civil War; the corrupt and tyrannical rule of the alien, renegade and negro, and the belief that it was supported by the Federal troops which controlled elections and legislative bodies; the disfranchisement of whites; the spread of ideas of social and political equality among the negroes; fear of negro insurrections; the arming of negro militia and the disarming of the whites; outrages upon white women by black men; the influence of Northern adventurers in the Freedmen's Bureau and the Union League in alienating the races; the humiliation of Confederate soldiers after they had been paroled - in general, the insecurity felt by Southern whites during the decade after the collapse of the Confederacy.
Mysterious signs and warnings were sent to disorderly negro politicians. The whites who were responsible for the conduct of the blacks were warned or driven away by social and business ostracism or by violence.
or=wikien-l m=August 15 y=2006 r=20060815 kw=citation
In the first place, the sky is "not" always blue, and therefore this is a "fact" that is not really quite true. In the second place, as is so often the case of things that "can't be sourced because they're just common knowledge," it is ''very'' easily sourced:
or=wikien-l m=August 16 y=2006 r=20060816 kw=citation
2. "According to the New York Times, X is Y" --- we do not assert the claim, but rather assert something which is much less controversial, i.e. that the NYT said so, leaving the reader to judge it. This is much better when the claim is controversial.
or=wikien-l m=October 15 y=2006 r=20061015 kw=citation
Is there any way we could have a date-stamped fact tag? Which would put such things into a category or other similar page? The purpose would be to provide a mechanism for people to find *older* examples of fact tags, in order to go ahead and remove them.
or=Air-l m=March 28 y=2007 r=20070328 14:47 UTC kw=conflict
I believe that a fruitful area of research in this areas would involve insights from a game-theoretic approach to social interactions to analyze how the rules of various kinds of software people are using to interact influence social behavior, sometimes in predictable ways, and sometimes in unpredictable ways.
In a totally unmoderated forum, where the members of the community have no means or ability to exclude people, the only remaining form of punishment for bad behavior seems to be more of the same kind of bad behavior: flaming.
Wikis introduce some great benefits for the creation of a less hostile social environment. Flaming comments can be easily hidden by other community members before they cause a general flame war. Editors can be banned by the community in a transparent and open way. Pages can be temporarily locked to allow for a cooling down period.
But there is much room for research here, I think, because each change to the software induces further changes to the social norms.
What is the impact in a wiki setting of turning on or off the ability for not-logged-in users to edit? (In practice this mostly means allowing people to edit anonymously rather than pseudonymously... an important distinction.)
What would happen if adminship were given automatically based on number of edits? What would happen if adminship were given through a strict voting process? What would happen if adminship were given through a strict voting process by existing admins? What if everyone was an admin by default?
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2007 r=20070419 kw=conflict
It is unacceptable that he be considered a member of this community, and I am disgusted at Jimbo for being willing to overlook the active attempts he has made to cause real world harm to members of this community.
or=wikien-l m=June 26 y=2007 r=20070626 kw=conflict
whether on AfD, policy decisions, or simple article content matters. Going by the dictionary definition of "consensus" (e.g. on Wiktionary) or our own encyclopaedia article on consensus, can we really claim that decision-making on Wikipedia is by consensus?
or=AboutUs m=July 28 y=2007 r=20070728 20:01 UTC kw=conflict
The Consensus Polls portal makes available a platform for collaborative decision making. Feel free to participate and contribute in any of the ongoing polls. You can also start a new consensus poll by visiting the Create page.
Being blocked for 3RR is frustrating, particularly if you're in the right. I should know. But what do you do instead? Well, in the first instance, just wait. Is this thing really so very important in the great scheme of things? Think of all the other articles on wiki just waiting for your help... OK, I knew that wouldn't work. Hey ho. Then, go to the talk page and try to discuss these changes. *Don't* rabbit on at endless length, try and set out your arguments so someone casually coming in can work out whats at issue. Find some other editors who might be interested. If all else fails, there is Wikipedia:Resolving_disputes
or=wikien-l m=September 07 y=2007 r=20070907 kw=conflict
I wonder what he thinks of all the subjectivism that seems to be driving policy around here. I'm referring in particular to the frequent assertions that the subjective feelings of editors are of such great importance that they often trump other concerns. In this diff:
or=wikien-l m=October 16 y=2007 r=20071016 kw=conflict
I'm not suggesting we should be paralysed by seeking consensus, but rather recognise that consensus isn't achievable in many cases, and stop pretending - i.e. formalise a decision-making procedure in such circumstances (majority - not very workable either, authority - not very workable and open to bias, strength of arguments - who decides). As you may surmise, I don't have a suggestion of how we solve the problem - I'd just like to see the pretence of "consensus" scrapped - because at the minute, where consensus becomes unworkable, people stick their heads in the sand, randomly use whatever decision-making means they can, and then declare there to be consensus.
or=Wikimedia-l m=February 07 y=2006 r=20060207 kw=collaboration
When I was a Wikipedian newbie, I wrote many guidelines on Thai WP including major policies and those manual of styles . Most of them I adopted from EN and modified for Thai users. I started writing those one by one. Although they're not complete at first but useful enough for new Wikipedians.
j=kuro5hin.org m=June 06 y=2006 r=20060606 12:47 UTC kw=collaboration
Defines "strong collaboration"
Instead, strong collaboration involves a constantly changing roster of interchangeable people, and changing mainly at the whim of the participants themselves. For the most part at least, collaborators are not pre-assigned to play special roles in the project. There is just one main role--that of collaborator. And anyone who shows up and fits the requirements (bear in mind that some projects have almost no requirements at all) can play that role. Moreover, to the extent to which work is strongly collaborative, everyone has equal rights over the product. Everyone feels equal ownership and feels equally emboldened to make changes.
or=wikien-l m=January 29 y=2007 r=20070129 kw=collaboration
Seeing how a few detractors here have been throwing around the term "groupthink" I have to ask, is there any real difference between the two or does it depend on which side of a "consensus" decision you are on? That is, if an article you wrote/are involved with survives AFD, then it's "consensus", if it gets deleted, it's "groupthink". Of course it's the other way around if it's an article you don't like.
or=wikien-l m=April 25 y=2007 r=20070425 kw=collaboration
I'm sure there's room for tinkering, feel free. One obvious idea is to generalize to "editor buddies" in general, but it seems like something that mostly makes more sense for heavily-involved editors - since this isn't mentoring, newbies and occasional editors aren't likely to get much benefit.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 02 y=2005 r=20050502 kw=collaboration
I think all Wikipedians would enjoy the book The Wisdom of Crowds by James Surowiecki. The basic premise is that crowds of relatively ignorant individuals make better decisions than small groups of experts. I'm sure everyone here agrees with this as Wikipedia is run this way and Wikipedia is a success, but until reading this book it was a total mystery why Wikipedia worked the way it did. And judging by the press we've gotten, I'm not the only one who feels with way. If you'll remember, the mystery of how Wikipedia works has been compared to sausage, bumble bees, public bathrooms, etc.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 02 y=2005 r=20050502 kw=collaboration
It's probably interesting to note that a central theme when I give public talks is precisely that Wikipedia is _not_ run this way, and that wikipedia is _not_ an instance of "The Wisdom of Crowds".
That's not to say that there isn't a lot to the notions of how a group collaboration can improve on what an individual can do. My point is just that Wikipedia functions a lot more like a traditional organization than most people realize -- it's a community of thoughtful people who know each other, not a colony of ants.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 02 y=2005 r=20050502 kw=collaboration
It's important to understand *why* he argues there is wisdom in crowds. I don't know if you've read it and disagree with the fundamentals, but it requires three specific conditions: diversity, independence, and decentralization within the group. This seems very appropriate to WP.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 02 y=2005 r=20050502 kw=collaboration
I don't feel as if I need to defend Surowiecki, and I don't understand your point, but I think he's made a useful contribution as your own example demonstrates. If the asynchronous and bite-sized character of Open contributions contribute to their success (Benkler "fine-grained", Sproull "microcontributions"), is that all? What *kind* of micro-contributions are necessary? *If* the contributions are crap, if they they aren't coming from diverse participants (e.g., not "group think"), independent (e.g., not "herding"), and decentralized and filtered/aggregated well (e.g., not "US intelligence" ;) ) then they might be useful.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 03 y=2005 r=20050503 kw=collaboration
The idea that Wikipedia is basically a core group of dedicated editors collaborating and reasoning together to build an encyclopedia, is very appealing to me. I used to think it was exactly right. And since most feedback I get or give on-wiki (including the bulk of policy and meta-discussions) involve dedicated editors, it is hard to recognize the effect, if any, of "swarm intelligence" on the project's development.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 04 y=2005 r=20050504 kw=collaboration
First, I whole heartedly agree with Jimbo that any posited explanation that fails to account for the dynamics and culture of good-willed interaction has got it wrong. So in that sense, Surowieki is (perhaps) necessary but (certainly) not sufficient.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 03 y=2005 r=20050503 kw=collaboration
I should point out that I like Surweicki's thesis just fine, it's just that I'm not convinced that "swarm intelligence" is very helpful in understanding how Wikipedia works -- in fact, it might be an impediment, because it leads us away from thinking about how the community interacts in a process of reasoned discourse.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 04 y=2005 r=20050504 kw=collaboration
My own research indicates the opposite, but let me be perfectly NPOV about my own research: it is completely amateurish and driven by my need to make interesting public talks that get the world excited and thinking about wikipedia. :-) I can hardly be considered an unbiased scientific researcher.
My research (conducted in December) showed that half the edits by logged in users belong to just 2.5% of logged in users. It would be extremely interesting to run tests to compare "edit dispersion" for new articles, old articles, heavily edited articles, highly watched articles, heavily trafficked articles, etc.
A deeper understanding of all these issues can have some interesting implications for us in terms of understanding certain policy issues.
or=wikien-l m=August 13 y=2007 r=20070813 kw=collaboration
brd: bold revert discuss
I recall Jimbo once said a long long time ago that a revert is akin to a slap in the face. I've grown used to people not understanding this when they revert someone else.
or=wikien-l m=October 12 y=2007 r=20071012 kw=collaboration
We've got a lot of cleanup work around here. The people who end up doing it often burn out because they do too much. And from the outside, some of the cleanup areas seem to get taken over by people with much more ardent views than the mainstream, causing a lot of friction. This reminds me of several of the shared houses I've lived in. Could we use the same solution, a chore wheel?
j=Make love, not traffic m=June 13 y=2007 r=20070724 14:48 UTC kw=mediation
Lessons of mediation: encourage giving, optimism, watchful for discussion, get participants to vocalize and negotiate, be careful with blocks, remember why you got into it
There's a few lessons I could draw, from that. One I usually try to look at is: encourage giving, get all sides in a dispute to make concessions, however small. This encourages people to play fairly, makes people see that everyone is committed to the mediation, and creates a feeling that progress is being made. Another lesson might be optimism: people need to believe that the mediation can work, and is working. If one person doesn't believe that, it's of the utmost importance to find out why, and fix the problem if at all possible. Users can almost always fix problems and arguments on their own; the trick is getting them to believe this, first.
Remember why you got into it -- with all the trials and tribulations, people yelling back and forth, and generally squabbling and refusing to work together until the most ridiculous concessions are made, it's important to keep your eye on the prize. Keep things together, keep the project together, and work for the best interests of the project.
or=wikien-l m=September 18 y=2005 r=20050918 kw=deletion
Having tired of listening to arguments about what goes on at AFD but having little data, I decided to engage in a little experiment to analyze voting patterns at AFD. I wrote a computer script to parse over 100 days of AFD logs and compile a variety of statistics by looking at the bold faced terms (eg. keep, delete, merge, etc).
or=wikien-l m=October 02 y=2005 r=20051002 kw=deletion
an interesting statistical analysis of articles for deletion
The empirically determined threshold for dividing delete and keep outcomes is 63.5% favoring deletion. This does not account for any vote discounting that may have occurred. If one assumes that most socks are there to vote keep, then this is probably consistent with the two-thirds majority that most people talk about as beign required for AFD consensus.
This threshold (63.5%) is enough to predict the outcome of 94% of AFDs. Suggesting that only about 6% of AFDs are subject to any significant degree of vote interpretation from admins.
or=wikien-l m=October 16 y=2005 r=20051016 kw=deletion
We have to do something about people advancing false pretexts to delete or to keep deleted. Time and again people in VFU absolutely refuse to actually look at the article, falsely claiming that they're notpermitted to actually take the valus of the thing to Wikipedia into account. This repeated peddling of falsehoods, which has taken such a strong hold in VFU that it is almost impossible to remedy a bad deletion debate, must be nipped in the bud before more good content is lost.
or=wikien-l m=October 18 y=2005 r=20051018 kw=deletion
Apparantly people who think that consensus on AfD means "70-75% with at least 10 clear non-sock/meatpuppet votes, with votes without clear reason being disregarded" aren't suitable to be admins.
j=Rough Type m=October 3 y=2005 r=20051020 kw=Authority
An attack of Tim O'Reilly's notion, as profiled by Steven Levy in Wired, that "Web 2.0 - is really the successor to the human potential movement?" The notion is overblown and Wikis and blogs aren't all they are hyped up to be.
In theory, Wikipedia is a beautiful thing - it has to be a beautiful thing if the Web is leading us to a higher consciousness. In reality, though, Wikipedia isn't very good at all. Certainly, it's useful - I regularly consult it to get a quick gloss on a subject. But at a factual level it's unreliable, and the writing is often appalling. I wouldn't depend on it as a source, and I certainly wouldn't recommend it to a student writing a research paper.
Uses the Gates and Fonda articles to demonstrate them as " an incoherent hodge-podge of dubious factoids"
Responses (many)
j=Many2Many m=October 20 y=2005 r=20051020 kw=criticism
Open source software and Wikipedia are both driven by commons-based peer production. How they differ, and the reason software development requires rigorous quality-control, is that code has dependencies. Writing code is vertical information assembly, while contributions to a wiki is horizontal information assembly. Wikipedia does have quality control and an organiztional model, but it isn’t a feature embodied in code, it is embodied in the group. I know of no goal of being authoritative, but the group voice that emerges on a page with enough edits (not time) represents a social authority that provides choice for the media literate. Carr could create a Wikipedia page to help define what “pure democracy” is to help him answer his rhetorical question — but a wiki is just a tool, and Wikipedia is an exceptional community using it.
j=The PC Doctor m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051020 kw=criticism
Partly, Wikipedia is driven by ego and Kilroyism (that desire to leave a “I was here” mark on the world) and it is no doubt a good example of what Nicholas Carr calls “cult of the amateur External Link”, making it without a doubt a Web 2.0 project now
j=The Register m=October 18 y=2005 r=20051020 kw=criticism
Yes it's garbage, but it's delivered so much faster!
Meanwhile, criticism from outside the Wikipedia camp has been rebuffed with a ferocious blend of irrationality and vigor that's almost unprecedented in our experience: if you thought Apple, Amiga, Mozilla or OS/2 fans were er, ... passionate, you haven't met a wiki-fiddler. For them, it's a religious crusade.
j=USA Today m=November 29 y=2005 r=20051201 kw=criticism
At age 78, I thought I was beyond surprise or hurt at anything negative said about me. I was wrong. One sentence in the biography was true. I was Robert Kennedy's administrative assistant in the early 1960s. I also was his pallbearer. It was mind-boggling when my son, John Seigenthaler, journalist with NBC News, phoned later to say he found the same scurrilous text on Reference.com and Answers.com.
j=MSNBC m=December 12 y=2005 r=20051212
He also said he doesn't support more regulations of the Internet, but he said that he fears "Wikipedia is inviting it by its allowing irresponsible vandals to write anything they want about anybody."
j=ArsTechnica m=December 05 y=2005 r=20051205 kw=criticism
Seigenthaler reactions
Wikipedia, like the World Wide Web, is as broad as it is shallow, and no one outside the borders of a few authoritarian dictatorships is seriously considering "doing" anything about the Internet. Scholars—or anyone—citing Wikipedia would probably best be advised to transfer to vocational school and learn air-conditioning repair.
What to do about Wikipedia? Caveat lector.
j=The Guardian m=December 09 y=2005 r=20051209 kw=criticism
The Wikipedia is one of the wonders of the internet.
In theory it was a recipe for disaster, but for most of the time it worked remarkably well, reflecting the essential goodness of human nature in a supposedly cynical world and fulfiling a latent desire for people all over the world to cooperate with each other without payment. The wikipedia is now a standard source of reference for millions of people including school children doing their homework and post-graduates doing research. Inevitably, in an experiment on this scale lots of entries have turned out to be wrong, mostly without mal-intent.
It is true of the Wikipedia, as it is of the rest of the internet, that information should not be regarded as sacrosanct. Everything should be double checked. In recent weeks the Wikipedia has been the victim of malevolent and anonymous changes, including character assassinations. As a result the Wiki godfathers are tightening up their rules by introducing registration so fingerprints can be traced. It is sad this has to be done because of vandalism by the few. But the wiki movement ought to emerge even stronger. Those who think its entries should be taken with a pinch of salt should never forget that there is still plenty of gold dust there.
or=WikimediaClassAction.com m=August 27 y=2007 r=20070827 kw=criticism
Saw this at .org in December 12 2005, but that domain is no longer there
There is a problem with the operation and functionality of the Internet. The basic problem is that some of the web site owners and most of the users, who are connected to the Internet, don't consider themselves responsible and therefore accountable for the extremely boring content.
Our primary concern is the recent severe infestation of the Internet bulletin boards and wikis which has exposed the growing problem of unexciting postings. Boring information is now constantly filling the Internet.
WikipediaClassAction.com is currently gathering complaints from the entire Internet community, including individuals, corporations, partnerships, etc., who believe that they have been exposed to uninteresting stories and or who have been or are the subject of dull and anonymous postings to the popular online encyclopedia WikiPedia or online anywhere.
Alternatively, if you are aware of postings on the Internet that are either unimaginative and or mind-numbing, please contact them and make them aware of the offending content and this website so that they may file a complaint with our group. We work pro-bono of course.
Our intention and the purpose of this website is multi-fold. Specifically, we seek to achieve the following:
Expose the inherent faults and flaws of the Internet (or is it World Wide Web we are after)
Force all the Internet users through legal action, to change all current practices that permit anyone to post lackluster content to their website, without formal attribution, without government approval and without recourse back to web site owners and or the author of the content.
Recover $ubstantial monetary damages, on behalf of those who have suffered as a direct result of anything
Establish a precedent that will ensure all websites are held responsible for their poor content
Close down the Internet except this site, catch the ambulance
j=The Seattle Times m=December 12 y=2005 r=20051212 kw=criticism
It started as a joke and ended up as a shot heard round the Internet, with the joker quitting his job and Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, suffering a blow to its credibility.
A man in Nashville, Tenn., has admitted that, in trying to shock a colleague with a joke, he put false information into a Wikipedia entry about John Seigenthaler Sr., a former editor of The Tennessean newspaper in Nashville.
Brian Chase, 38, who until Friday was an operations manager at a small delivery company, told Seigenthaler he had written the material suggesting Seigenthaler had been involved in the assassinations of John and Robert Kennedy.
j=The Register m=December 13 y=2005 r=20051213 kw=criticism
So we come to the question of responsibility. We've promised to deal with the ethics of Wikipedia before, and it's no longer possible to ignore the elephant in the room, so we must.
For sure a libel is a libel, but the outrage would have been far more muted if the Wikipedia project didn't make such grand claims for itself. The problem with this vanity exercise is one that it's largely created for itself. The public has a firm idea of what an "encyclopedia" is, and it's a place where information can generally be trusted, or at least slightly more trusted than what a labyrinthine, mysterious bureaucracy can agree upon, and surely more trustworthy than a piece of spontaneous graffiti - and Wikipedia is a king-sized cocktail of the two.
If you recall the utopian rhetoric that accompanied the advent of the public "internet" ten years ago, we were promised that unlimited access to the world's greatest "knowledge" was just around the corner. This hasn't happened, for reasons cited above, but now the public is now being exhorted to assume the posture of a citizen in an air raid, where every moving object might be a dangerous missile.
Everything you read is suspect! You'd better duck!
Only a paranoiac, or a mad person, can sustain this level of defensiveness for any length of time however, and to hear a putative "encyclopedia" making such a statement is odd, to say the least.
This defense firmly puts the blame on the reader, for being so stupid as to take the words at face value. Silly you, for believing us, they say.
The second defense is rather more intriguing, and repellant.
Wikipedia's defenders point to the open model, where anyone can make changes, as another example of shrugging off responsibility.
This, again, is an excuse we have to savor as much as a lepidopterist might savor catching an undiscovered breed of butterfly - it's an excuse that can only be heard during rare blips in human history.
This one owes its credibility to the fact that the word "publication" has become rather blurry. Wikipedia is a project whose failure is genetically programmed into its mechanisms, and "publication" is one of those things that will trigger the final, fatal sequence of destruction.
We can rest assured that Wikipedia will never be printed - or at least not in countries where defamation laws exist. Perhaps some brave soul will attempt a Wikipedia tome in Borneo. Or Mars. But as soon as it hits print, the blurriness behind publication disappears, and Wikipedia The Book is seen for what it is, an evasiveness based on accident. And the lawsuits will begin in earnest.
So Wikipedia's second defense rests heavily on the assumption that everyone in the whole world is participating, watching, and writing at every moment of the day, and so that a failure to pay attention represents negligence on the part of the complainer. Seigenthaler, the argument goes, was clearly being an idiot when he failed to notice that day's piece of web grafitti. Instead of taking his dog for a walk, or composing an email to his grandchildren, he should have been paying ceaseless attention to ... his Wikipedia biography.
To which the only honest answer is, "we don't owe you anything".
Really, we don't. If they can't get it right, why on earth should we have to clean up the mess. I can't speak for you, but I have better things to do.
"It's the Hive Mind wot dunnit. Not me"
If "publication" by an "encyclopedia" means anything, it means that you have to get those facts right.
More or less. Kinda.
And "publication", therefore, entails some kind of responsibility. The "Hive Mind", or "collective intelligence" that we're told will "self-correct" such goofs is simply absent when it's needed. The only people operating the levers of the man behind the Hive Mind curtain, it seems, are the Wikipedians.
Involvement in Wikipedia has taken its toll on a significant number of decent, fair minded people who with the most honorable intentions, have tried to alert the project to its social responsibilities and failed. Such voices could be heard on the Wikipedia mailing list, speaking up for quality. Wikipedia is losing good editors at an alarming rate, but who can blame them for leaving?
Now a picture of the body behind the "Hive Mind" of "collective intelligence" begins to take shape.
He's 14, he's got acne, he's got a lot of problems with authority ... and he's got an encyclopedia on dar interweb.
No, I don't think people should cite it, and I don't think people should cite Britannica, either -- the error rate there isn't very good. People shouldn't be citing encyclopedias in the first place. Wikipedia and other encyclopedias should be solid enough to give good, solid background information to inform your studies for a deeper level. And really, it's more reliable to read Wikipedia for background than to read random Web pages on the Internet.
j=Many2Many m=December 17 y=2005 r=20051217 kw=criticism
What pissed me off more was how the academic community pointed to this case and went “See! See! Wikipedia is terrible! We must protest it and stop it! It’s ruining our schools!” All of a sudden, i found myself defending Wikipedia to academics instead of reminding the pro-Wikipedians of its limitations in academia. I kept pointing out that they wouldn’t let students cite from encyclopedias either. I reminded folks that the answer is not to protest it, but to teach students how to read it and to understand its strengths and limitations. To actually TEACH students to interpret web material. I reminded academics that Wikipedia provides information to people who don’t have access to books and that mostly-good information is far better than none. Most importantly, i reminded academics that the vast majority of articles on Wikipedia are super solid and if they had a problem with them, they could fix them. Academics have a lot of knowledge, but all too often they forget that they are teachers and that there is great value in teaching the masses, not just the small number of students who will help their careers progress. Alas, public education has been devalued and information elitism is rampant in an age where we finally have the tools to make knowledge more accessible. Sad. (And one of the many things that is making me disillusioned with academia these days.) I found myself being the Wikipedia promoter because i found the extreme academic viewpoint to be just as egregious as the extreme Wikipedia viewpoint.
j=The Guardian m=December 15 y=2005 r=20051223 kw=criticism
What I realised - perhaps it was the mention of Scientology - is that Wikipedia, and so many other online activities, show all the outward characteristics of a cult. Which, by my (computer's) dictionary definition, means "a system of religious veneration and devotion directed toward a particular figure or object; a relatively small group of people having religious beliefs or practices regarded by others as strange or sinister; a misplaced or excessive admiration for a particular person or thing; a person or thing that is popular or fashionable, esp. among a particular section of society, 'a cult film'."
Certainly the latter definition could easily be used for Wikipedia. I also think the first ones are appropriate. There is a quasi-religious fervour surrounding the "rightness" of Wikipedia, or Apple's products, or RSS vs Atom. To outsiders, it makes little or no sense. To those inside, it is the most important topic they can imagine.
As I said, the cult of cultism isn't only happening at Wikipedia. (And I'm certainly not comparing Jimmy Wales, who set up Wikipedia with the most honorable intentions, to Hubbard's daft science-fiction grow-your-own "religion".) It's visible all over the net.
j=Esquire m=December 16 y=2005 r=20051216 kw=criticism
Wales's idea has become so powerful, in fact, that it may not be too much to say that individual authors are in serious danger. Society is on the verge of reverting to the creative model of the Middle Ages, when the cathedrals were not the work of a medieval I. M. Pei but the result of hundreds of anonymous people all laboring for a common anti-individualist cause.
Put it this way: In ten years, this article won't have a byline.
m=February 15 y=2006 r=20060215 kw=criticism
Kapors talk includes a very good review of Wikipedia including principles such as "Don't criticize, improve!"
m=April 14 y=2006 r=20060414 14:51 UTC kw=criticism
Wikitruth is a website dedicated to the subject of flaws and issues with the Wikipedia, another website run by Jimbo Wales and a massive, insane army of Wikipedians that he controls with his mind rays. It's very hard to really explain Wikipedia, but if you visit it, it says it wants to be "the online encylopedia that anyone can edit". Instead, however, it is often filled with crazy people, experiences some issues with manipulative personalities, and falls prey to abuse and censorship. And that's a real shame.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060419 15:02 UTC kw=criticism
As someone who has been jostling with Wikipedia administrators for several weeks, I am very interested in whom I should sue if I wanted to sue. This assumes, of course, that I've decided I've been clearly libeled by Wikipedia's article on me, and/or the discussion page attached to it. At the moment, this is an intellectual interest of mine, and I am not currently claiming that I have been libeled
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
After noting how he is unable to correct his biography page regarding directing films, the author launches a wide-ranging critique of the hype surrounding recent computer mediated collective endeavors. However, his notion of a "hive mind" is partly a strawman: he acknowledges decentralized production can be effective at certain tasks, but not all, and systems need to be designed to guard against mediocre and malicious contributions. Few would disagree with this. Many might share his concern that the "hive mind" leads to a loss of individuality and uniqueness but I am not necessarily convinced these are the necessary implications. Questions about business models will best be born out in time. Among the many responses Yochai Benkler's parsing and critique is the best, and Jimmy Wales' is confusing, or perhaps, disingenuous, though to be more fair it's his re-focussing on the individual autonomy and community culture.
Wikipedia
No, the problem is in the way the Wikipedia has come to be regarded and used; how it's been elevated to such importance so quickly. And that is part of the larger pattern of the appeal of a new online collectivism that is nothing less than a resurgence of the idea that the collective is all-wise, that it is desirable to have influence concentrated in a bottleneck that can channel the collective with the most verity and force. This is different from representative democracy, or meritocracy.
A core belief of the wiki world is that whatever problems exist in the wiki will be incrementally corrected as the process unfolds. This is analogous to the claims of Hyper-Libertarians who put infinite faith in a free market, or the Hyper-Lefties who are somehow able to sit through consensus decision-making processes. In all these cases, it seems to me that empirical evidence has yielded mixed results. Sometimes loosely structured collective activities yield continuous improvements and sometimes they don't. Often we don't live long enough to find out.
When you see the context in which something was written and you know who the author was beyond just a name, you learn so much more than when you find the same text placed in the anonymous, faux-authoritative, anti-contextual brew of the Wikipedia. The question isn't just one of authentication and accountability, though those are important, but something more subtle. A voice should be sensed as a whole.... Even Britannica has an editorial voice, which some people have criticized as being vaguely too "Dead White Men."
Myspace is a richer, multi-layered, source of information than the Wikipedia, although the topics the two services cover barely overlap.
Meta
The Wikipedia is far from being the only online fetish site for foolish collectivism. There's a frantic race taking place online to become the most "Meta" site, to be the highest level aggregator, subsuming the identity of all other sites.
Even Google by itself (as it stands today) isn't Meta enough to be a problem. One layer of page ranking is hardly a threat to authorship, but an accumulation of many layers can create a meaningless murk, and that is another matter.
But at the layer of popurls, the ice cream story and the Javanese earthquake are at best equals, without context or authorship.
Kevin Kelly says of the "popurls" site, "There's no better way to watch the hive mind." But the hive mind is for the most part stupid and boring. Why pay attention to it?
AI
The problem with that presumption is that people are all too willing to lower standards in order to make the purported newcomer appear smart.
Larry Page is quoted via a link presented to me by popurls this morning (who knows if it's accurate) as speculating that an AI might appear within Google within a few years
The beauty of the Internet is that it connects people. The value is in the other people. If we start to believe the Internet itself is an entity that has something to say, we're devaluing those people and making ourselves into idiots.
Business models
What we are witnessing today is the alarming rise of the fallacy of the infallible collective. Numerous elite organizations have been swept off their feet by the idea. They are inspired by the rise of the Wikipedia, by the wealth of Google, and by the rush of entrepreneurs to be the most Meta. Government agencies, top corporate planning departments, and major universities have all gotten the bug.
What I've seen is a loss of insight and subtlety, a disregard for the nuances of considered opinions, and an increased tendency to enshrine the official or normative beliefs of an organization.
Pop
Except when intelligent thought really matters. In that case the average idea can be quite wrong, and only the best ideas have lasting value. Science is like that.
Crowds
This is an example of the special kind of intelligence offered by a collective. It is that peculiar trait that has been celebrated as the "Wisdom of Crowds," though I think the word "wisdom" is misleading. It is part of what makes Adam Smith's Invisible Hand clever, and is connected to the reasons Google's page rank algorithms work. It was long ago adapted to futurism, where it was known as the Delphi technique. The phenomenon is real, and immensely useful.
Stupid
Collectives can be just as stupid as any individual, and in important cases, stupider. The interesting question is whether it's possible to map out where the one is smarter than the many.
The collective is more likely to be smart when it isn't defining its own questions, when the goodness of an answer can be evaluated by a simple result (such as a single numeric value,) and when the information system which informs the collective is filtered by a quality control mechanism that relies on individuals to a high degree.
Meanwhile, an individual best achieves optimal stupidity on those rare occasions when one is both given substantial powers and insulated from the results of his or her actions.
Dangers
the time domain: too fast (loses democratic "low pass filtering"), too slow (e.g., global warming)
History has shown us again and again that a hive mind is a cruel idiot when it runs on autopilot. Nasty hive mind outbursts have been flavored Maoist, Fascist, and religious, and these are only a small sampling.
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
Because of cost constraints and organizational and legal adaptations in the last 150 years, our information, knowledge, and cultural production system has taken on an industrial form, to the exclusion of social and peer-production. Britney Spears and American Idol are the apotheosis of that industrial information economy, not of the emerging networked information economy.
What we see in fact is that we are not intellectual lemmings. We do not meander about in the intellectual equivalent of Brownian motion. We cluster around topics we care about. We find people who care about similar issues. We talk. We link. We see what others say and think. And through our choices we develop a different path for determining what issues are relevant and salient, through a distributed system that, while imperfect, is less easily corrupted than the advertising supported media that dominated the twentieth century.
Wikipedia captures the imagination not because it is so perfect, but because it is reasonably good in many cases: a proposition that would have been thought preposterous a mere half-decade ago. The fact that it is now compared not to the mainstream commercial encyclopedias like Grollier's, Encarta, or Columbia, but to the quasi-commercial, quasi-professional gold standard of the Britannica is itself the amazing fact. It is, after all, the product of tens of thousands of mostly well-intentioned individuals, some more knowledgeable than others, but almost all flying in the face of homo economicus and the Leviathan combined. Wikipedia is not faceless, by an large. Its participants develop, mostly, persistent identities (even if not by real name) and communities around the definitions.
The big substantive limitation I see is his excessively rosy view of the efficacy of the price system in information production.
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
Wikipedia isn't great because it's like the Britannica. The Britannica is great at being authoritative, edited, expensive, and monolithic. Wikipedia is great at being free, brawling, universal, and instantaneous.
So Wikipedia gets it wrong. Britannica gets it wrong, too. The important thing about systems isn't how they work, it's how they fail. Fixing a Wikipedia article is simple. Participating in the brawl takes more effort, but then, that's the price you pay for truth, and it's still cheaper than starting up your own Britannica.
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
The bottom-up hive mind will always take us much further that seems possible. It keeps surprising us. In this regard, the Wikipedia truly is exhibit A, impure as it is, because it is something that is impossible in theory, and only possible in practice. It proves the dumb thing is smarter than we think. At that same time, the bottom-up hive mind will never take us to our end goal. We are too impatient. So we add design and top down control to get where we want to go.
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
It's not quite right to say the "collectivists" believe that the collective is all-wise. Rather, they don't really care about getting it right as much as they care about equality.
So I think we are discovering that there is a lively movement afoot that rejects the traditional kinds of positive epistemic status, and wants to replace them with, or explain them in terms of, whatever it is that the collective (i.e., a large group of people, of which one is a part) believes or endorses. We can give this view a name, for convenience: epistemic collectivism.
What's great about it is not that it produces an averaged view, an averaged view that is somehow better than an authoritative statement by people who actually know the subject. That's just not it at all. What's great about Wikipedia is the fact that it is a way to organize enormous amounts of labor for a single intellectual purpose. The virtue of strong collaboration, as demonstrated by projects like Wikipedia, is that it represents a new kind of "industrial revolution," where what is reorganized is not techne but instead mental effort. It's the sheer efficiency of strongly collaborative systems that is so great, not their ability to produce The Truth. Just how to eke The Truth out of such a strongly collaborative system is an unsolved, and largely unaddressed, problem.
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
"A core belief of the wiki world is that whatever problems exist in the wiki will be incrementally corrected as the process unfolds."
My response is quite simple: this alleged "core belief" is not one which is held by me, nor as far as I know, by any important or prominent Wikipedians. Nor do we have any particular faith in collectives or collectivism as a mode of writing. Authoring at Wikipedia, as everywhere, is done by individuals exercising the judgment of their own minds.
"The best guiding principle is to always cherish individuals first."
j=Edge m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060607 17:18 UTC kw=criticism
All intelligence is collective. But, as Lanier points out, that does not mean that all collectives are intelligent.
The important part of his message is a warning to respect, and preserve, our own intelligence. The dangers of relinquishing individual intelligence are real.
j=Rough Type m=May 24 y=2006 r=20060524 14:56 UTC kw=criticism
An objection to the extension of semi-protection, punditry.
Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that "anyone can edit," was a nice experiment in the "democratization" of publishing, but it didn't quite work out. Wikipedia is dead. It died the way the pure products of idealism always do, slowly and quietly and largely in secret, through the corrosive process of compromise.
responses
j=Ross Mayfield's Weblog m=May 25 y=2006 r=20060525 13:03 UTC kw=criticism
punditry
First Nick Carr said Wikipedia isn't like open source because there isn't hierarchical gate-keeping, and then he said Wikis won't work because they don't favor experts. Now the claim is Wikipedia is dead because it is giving up it's open editing ideals, trending towards hierarchy and gate-keeping.
j=Many-to-Many m=May 25 y=2006 r=20060525 17:30 UTC kw=criticism
As a result, successful open systems create the very conditions that require a threaten openess. Systems that handle this pressure effectively continue (Slashdot comments.) Systems that can’t or don’t find ways to balance openess and closedness — to become semi-protected — fail (Usenet.)
or=wikien-l m=May 28 y=2006 r=20060528 kw=criticism
There is actually a strange irony. Some of the people who post to Wikipedia Review are or could be legitimate critics, with thoughtful and perhaps even interesting criticisms of things that we have done wrong, either through honest mistakes, human failings, or bad policy. Such critics might be hard to listen to, but traditionally we have been quite good at doing so, and I am always one of the first to say that we should try to listen to all criticism for nuggets of wisdom.
But those who are potentially legitimate critics do themselves a serious disservice by participating in a forum with people who are, quite simply, mental cases, and who discredit the entire operation with what can only be classified as offensive hate speech and stalking.
j=Jimmy Wales' Blog m=June 17 y=2006 r=20060619 13:40 UTC kw=criticism
The facts are that protection as a policy has existed for years. Semi-protection was devised as a softer, more open approach. Rather than full protection, which means that no one can edit, we now increasingly use semi-protection, which allows people to continue to edit the article.
or=wikien-l m=June 18 y=2006 r=20060618 kw=criticism
Jimmy Wales may argue that the NYT got the situation exactly backwards, but the reality is that this is a semantic game and in this case the contrarian position the NYT is arguing is, if not ultimately correct, an important one to have. Wikipedia benefits by having outsiders challenging Wikipedia to be and remain open and free. Institutions by their nature are conservative and self-protecting, and their commitment to their claimed ideals must face constant challenge for them to remain true to said ideals.
or=wikien-l m=June 22 y=2006 r=20060622 kw=criticism
correction to the earlier article
Since no one else has pointed it out, here's their "correction": A front-page headline on Saturday with an article about the online reference work Wikipedia referred imprecisely to its "anyone can edit" guidelines, which have always restricted changes in a small percentage of articles. While Wikipedia has indeed added a category of articles that are "semi-protected" from editing, it has not "revised" its policy or otherwise put additional restrictions on editing; it says the change is intended to reduce the number of entries on which editing is banned altogether. --
m=August 07 y=2006 r=20060807 17:22 UTC kw=criticism
Done in the spirit of Ambrose Bierce's The Devil's Dictionary, Encyclopedia dramatica's purpose is to provide a central catalog for the e-public to view parody and satirie of drama, memes, e-pals and other interesting happenings on the internets. The goal is to provide comprehensive, reference-style parody, to poke fun at everyone and everything on the internet.
While the articles themselves are mostly satirical jabs at Internet users (both individually and in groups) and phenomena, bear in mind that the Encyclopedia Dramatica itself is a parody of a much less funny online encyclopedia. As such, ED articles tend to make fun of the supposed objectivity and accuracy, elitism, and stupid edit wars of such sites. In other words, expect blatant, biased lies, and expect boring truths to get deleted quickly.
ED's third purpose is to catalogue Internets phenomena. In this role, it's actually a fairly good reference for dramatic events and things like memes and netspeak, provided you bear in mind the first two purposes and take what you learn with a Girlmecha-sized grain of salt.
j=The Register m=July 26 y=2006 r=20060815 13:02 UTC kw=criticism
A high school in Nebraska, USA is suing over entries posted on Wikipedia - the website that "anyone can edit" that's popular with teenagers and the unemployed. Wikipedia itself isn't the target of the lawsuit from Skutt High School, nor are many of the sites that legally or illegally scrape Wikipedia's content.
The school has filed a John and Joe Doe lawsuit to identify the perps behind edits which, AP reports, "... include sharp criticism of Skutt principal Patrick Slattery, obscene language and a note about drug use by students."
"These particular edits were really harmful and mean-spirited," said Patrick Flood, a lawyer for Skutt told AP.
The offending entry for Skutt High School was replaced by a clean stub.
The edits were made between February and June this year, but the offending page was deleted and replaced with a "clean" stub, which was accorded "protected" status on July 22. Protected status means the entry can't be edited by anonymous users, or recently-registered users, leaving it in the hands of Wikipedia's elite.
Delightfully, however - and in true Wikipedia fashion - the new, minimal entry places the school, the town of Omaha, and the entire US state of Nebraska in Canada:
j=Judicial Inc y=2006 r=20060824 13:04 UTC kw=criticism
Once you get below the surface, you find moderators that follow an agenda, which clearly takes a Pro-Jewish point of view.
j=The Register m=September 23 y=2006 r=20060928 19:54 UTC kw=criticism
Once you've read Wikiruth, it's hard to think of Wikipedia as anything other than an autistic care group for the obese and the underemployed. Especially after had one viewed its attempts to "do a good job" with a dispassionate eye.
j=Many-to-Many m=November 20 y=2006 r=20061120 21:14 UTC kw=criticism
I want to offer a less telegraphic account of the relationship between expertise, credentials, and authority than I did in Larry Sanger, Citizendium, and the Problem of Expertise, and then say why I think the cost of coordination in the age of social software favors Wikipedia over Citizendium, and over traditionally authoritative efforts such as Britannica.
j=Technology & Marketing Law Blog m=November 22 y=2006 r=20061122 17:27 UTC kw=criticism
In particular, I remarked to Mike that Wikipedia inevitably will be overtaken by the gamers and the marketers to the point where it will lose all credibility. There are so many examples of community-driven communication tools that ultimately were taken over—-USENET and the Open Directory Project are two that come top-of mind-—that I didn’t imagine that my statement would be controversial or debatable. Instead, I was surprised when Mike disagreed with my assertion. Mike’s view is that Wikipedia has shown remarkable resilience to attacks to date, and this is evidence that the system is more stable than I think it is.
j=The Participant Observer m=January 9 y=2007 r=20070115 15:57 UTC kw=criticism
A complain about how people are throwing Wikis at every (inapproriate) problem.
Image of Braudel's bookThis was right about the time I began to find the ubiquitous wiki irksome. I began to have nightmares of Wikipedia as the deceptively attractive harbinger of that age-old (and to me most savage) dream of reason–knowledge without a knower. I began to wonder if we didn’t need some sort of later-day Braudel to make sensible to us the structures and practices of daily life in the recent past. Like back in the late 1980s when most administrative assistants had a working knowledge of some database program like FileMaker.
m=July 16 y=2002 r=20070906 15:07 UTC kw=criticism
But in the end, the conversation returned to search. What would a perfect search engine look like? we asked. "It would be the mind of God. Larry [Page] says it would know exactly what you want and give you back exactly what you need."
j=Los Angeles Times m=December 17 y=2004 r=20070822
An attack on the "boogie-woogie Google boys" position at the gathering all the world's information is useful and merits any fanfare. He is spouses a anti-Otlet view on the usefulness of fragments of information
1 The books in great libraries are much more than the sum of their parts. They are designed to be read sequentially and cumulatively, so that the reader gains knowledge in the reading.
1 information outs of context is not likely to be useful
1 an active and developed interlibrary vending system is useful, though it requires a short wait contrary to the "Googleworld" ethos
1 The nub of the matter lies in the distinction between information (data, facts, images, quotes and brief texts that can be used out of context) and recorded knowledge (the cumulative exposition found in scholarly and literary texts and in popular nonfiction). When it comes to information, a snippet from Page 142 might be useful. When it comes to recorded knowledge, a snippet from Page 142 must be understood in the light of pages 1 through 141 or the text was not worth writing and publishing in the first place.
2 digitized scholarly books are "expensive exercises in futility" based on the presumption that electronic communication "will supplant and obliterate all previous forms."
2 This latest version of Google hype will no doubt join taking personal commuter helicopters to work and carrying the Library of Congress in a briefcase on microfilm as "back to the future" failures, for the simple reason that they were solutions in search of a problem.
j=Library Journal m=February 15 y=2005 r=20070822
Gorman properly learns of the blogosphere from the outraged response to his earlier essay about Google. Ironically, he is insulting, but really is the consummate blogger himself: opinionated, unsourced (from the hip), and controversial. Before attacking Wikipedia, Gorman had set his sights on Google's digitization efforts, and then "blog people" when they called him clueless. Also, anti-Otlet though he mentions Universal Bibliographic Control.
1 The Google phenomenon is a wonderfully modern manifestation of the triumph of hope and boosterism over reality. Hailed as the ultimate example of information retrieval, Google is, in fact, the device that gives you thousands of "hits" (which may or may not be relevant) in no very useful order.
1 How could I possibly be against access to the world's knowledge? Of course, like most sane people, I am not against it and, after more than 40 years of working in libraries, am rather for it. I have spent a lot of my long professional life working on aspects of the noble aim of Universal Bibliographic Control—a mechanism by which all the world's recorded knowledge would be known, and available, to the people of the world. My sin against bloggery is that I do not believe this particular project will give us anything that comes anywhere near access to the world's knowledge.
j=Washington Monthly m=December 17 y=2004 r=20070822
Gorman's essay is defensive and Luddite "nannyish advice" premised on the misunderstanding that Google will put libraries out of business. The author, in reply, doesn't consume books serially. Asks whether Gorman should be unelected as the ALA's president
2 Will we all read entire books online? Or print them out? Probably not. But when I use a brick-and-mortar library I don't always do that either. I browse. I peek into books. I take notes from chapters here and there. A digitized library allows me to do the same thing, but with vastly greater scope and vastly greater focus.
j=Librarian 2 m=December 23 y=2004 r=20070906 15:13 UTC kw=criticism
Drum fans the fires of the online blogger community to some fairly reactionary commentary calculated to be clever. People don't know our field and don't take the time to read about it. Comments (139 of them!) include:
This crusty librarian will be replaced by a grad student, and go to his grave bitterly defending the way things used to be.
We need to stay with stone tablets. This modern "paper and ink" material upsets me terribly.
I think this is a 'keeping the troops in line' Op/ed. That is, somebody spazzed about google threatening to destroy publishing and he's reassuring them that they can continue to make buggy whips because horses are better than cars.
kw=criticism m=June 11 y=2007 r=20070615
Using the example of how the author was able to find authoritative information on the artist Goya, he implies the fact that his authoritative printed version has credibility and fixity because it is part of a set of relationships in which authenticity is established.
1 Bloggers are called “citizen journalists”; alternatives to Western medicine are increasingly popular, though we can thank our stars there is no discernable “citizen surgeon” movement;
-- but people do receive CPR and EMT training
1 The difference is in the authenticity and fixity of the former (that its creator is reputable and it is what it says it is), the expertise that has given it credibility, and the scholarly apparatus that makes the recorded knowledge accessible on the one hand and the lack of authenticity, expertise, and complex finding aids in the latter. The difference is not, emphatically not, in the communication technology involved.
2 It is under threat because, to be successful, it depends on the authenticity of the connection between the teacher/researcher/author who has created a part of the human record and the person who wishes to learn from the study of that part. That connection is authentic only if certain conditions are met.
kw=criticism m=June 12 y=2007 r=20070615
The second part of his essays focuses specifically on the inadequacies of digital maoism and the wisdom of crowds. He argues this pop sociology conflates the means of computer technology, with the ends of creating authoritative works. The author lauds individual and authentic personal expression of the individual, and distinguishes between the product of many minds, and that of a collective mind.
1 This “wisdom of the crowds” and “hive mind” mentality is a direct assault on the tradition of individualism in scholarship that has been paramount in Western societies at least since the Renaissance and, before then, can be seen in the Church Fathers and the Greek philosophers, among others.
1 Digital Maoism is an unholy brew made up of the digital utopianism that hailed the Internet as the second coming of Haight-Ashbury-everyone’s tripping and it’s all free; pop sociology derived from misreading books such as James Surowiecki’s 2004 The Wisdom of Crowds: Why the Many are Smarter Than the Few and How Collective Wisdom Shapes Business, Economies, Societies, and Nations; a desire to avoid individual responsibility; anti-intellectualism-the common disdain for pointy headed professors; and the corporatist “team” mentality that infests much modern management theory.
1 This neatly conflates derision of the professorial authority figure and the endemic confusion of means (computer technology makes it easy to produce books) and ends (the creation of worthwhile texts is neither helped nor hindered, except in the most banal aspects, by computer technology).
2 Leaving aside the understandable tendency to reject this as an example of technophiliac rambling (despite its [the new kind of person of collective intelligence] evocation of Joyce's Finnegan's Wake), there is something very troubling about the bleak, dehumanizing vision it embodies "this monster brought forth by the sleep of reason."
2 The structures are scholarship and learning are based on respect for individuality and authentic expression of individual personalities.
2 An encyclopedia (literally, the “circle of learning”) is the product of many minds. It is not the product of a collective mind. It is an assemblage of texts that have been written by people with credentials and expertise and that have been edited, verified, and supplied with a scholarly apparatus enabling the user to locate desired knowledge
j=Many2Many kw=criticism m=June 13 y=2007 r=20070615
A response to Gorman's criticisms of Wikipedia as an exemplar of contemporary "pop" social ills (e.g. biblical literalism, alternative medicine). The author argues that Gorman has two contrary views of technology, and criticizes him as the privileged scholar content with his access to that it prints information, instead of fighting a rearguard action of preventing access (e.g. Catholic priests in the face of vernacular Bibles), we need to focus on how to increase access.
1 Shirky argues that the list of complaints against current culture, "from biblical literalism to interest in alternatives to Western medicine," is "so at odds with the historical record as to be self defeating." That is, biblical literalism has remained constant since the 1980s, but those identifying as not religious has grown. Interesting alternative medicines have been around since the 19th century, etc.
2 there are two theories of technology in Sleep of Reason: technology as an empty vessel, and technology as shaping (e.g. intellectual revolutions be a print). The author finds this to be contrary: is print authoritative or not?
2 Gorman is adopting a historically contingent view: Revolution then was good, revolution now is bad. As a result, according to Gorman, the shift to digital and network reproduction of information will fail unless it recapitulates the institutions and habits that have grown up around print.
2 Digital and network production increases freedom of speech, press, and assembly. The absolute advantage of expertise is the same, but the relative advantage of expertise is in decline because "the apparatus of credentialing made finding experts easier than finding amateurs, even when the amateurs do the same thing as the experts" -- but this is no longer the case
2 This scholars-eye view is the key to Gorman’s lament: so long as scholars are content with their culture, the inability of most people to enjoy similar access is not even a consideration.
3 Wikipedia is the product not of collectivism but of unending argumentation; the corpus grows not from harmonious thought but from constant scrutiny and emendation.
3 Academic libraries, which in earlier days provided a service, have outsourced themselves as bouncers to publishers like Reed-Elsevier; their principal job, in the digital realm, is to prevent interested readers from gaining access to scholarly material.
3 we need to instead focus on how to make access easier, rather than acting as Catholic priests in the face of vernacular Bibles
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 25 y=2007 r=20070627
A criticism of the "uniqueness of the young" myth and argument that any positive aspects of the digital revolution need to be integrated with the "the tripartite elements of education" (teaching, true research, and interacting with complex texts). These elements are characterized by concern with authenticity, credentials, standards, and authority
1 the Web includes texts of doubtful authenticity, reliability; and students have little sense of what constitutes real research
2 The fact is that today's young, as do the young in every age, need to learn from those who are older and wiser; they need to acquire good habits of study and research; and they need to be exposed to and learn to experience the richness of the human record. Pretending that the Internet and the Web have abolished those eternal verities is both intellectually dishonest and a proposal for cultural suicide.
2 the Academy should avoid its present posturing and trendiness with discussion about how to accommodate the positive aspects of the digital revolution with the pre-existing values of "the tripartite elements of education that have led to so much societal progress in the past": teaching, true research, and the "lifelong interaction with complex texts (true literacy)"
2 Each of the elements of education is characterized by an insistence on authenticity and high standards. Teachers must have credentials as authorities and prove them continuously. True research is dependent on adherence to high standards of probity and scholarly rigor. The texts from which students learn must be primary sources or the product of people of authority in their fields.
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 26 y=2007 r=20070627
Attacks of the presumed consequences of the "digital tsunami" including different types of literacy (true literacy means dealing with complex texts and intelligences. He admits this might be elitist, but so be it as the alternative of semi-literacy and ignorance is worse. Attacks Wikipedia because one cannot tell the quality of the different contributions, and uses the Essjay and Seigenthaler cases as examples. Attacks any professor who would use Wikipedia, and argues for return of intellectual meritocracy as the true standard in any intellectual endeavor.
1 The same goes for the theories of different "intelligences." Intelligence is the ability to think quickly and logically, to absorb new ideas and to incorporate them into existing knowledge, to express ideas clearly in speech and writing--in short, to learn and grow in understanding. Intelligence, an essential component of success in the educational process, is partly a gift and partly the result of work and training. There is no substitute for it academically, and it is very important that it be nurtured, encouraged, and rewarded.
2 Perhaps these are elitist ideas? So be it. Learning and education are enterprises in which the academically gifted prosper and are justified in prospering. That prospering benefits the individual, but it also benefits society. A leveling academy that rewards semi-literacy and tolerates ignorance is, by definition, dysfunctional. We should be seeking to reward the intellectually gifted, not least because societal progress depends on their intelligence, understanding, and wisdom.
3 Looking at Wikipedia's article about itself, he asks should we entrust the education of children to sell selected experts were "Tom, Dick, or Sally"? He notes the Essjay problem as an example of what can go wrong on the Wikipedia.
4 The central idea behind Wikipedia is that it is an important part of an emerging mass movement aimed at the “democratization of knowledge”—an egalitarian cyberworld in which all voices are heard and all opinions are welcomed.
4 Wait a minute! The aggregation of the opinions of the informed and the uninformed (ranging from the ignorant to the crazy) is decidedly and emphatically not “what is known about any given topic.” It is a mixture of the known (emanating from the knowledgeable and the expert) and erroneous or partial information (emanating from the uniformed and the inexpert).
4 it is impossible to tell of Wikipedia "which parts are wheat and which parts are chaff, since the authors and editors of that entry are unknown."
4 So, in essence, we are asked to believe two things--first that an authoritative work can be the result of the aggregation of the opinions of self selected anonymous "experts" with or without credentials and, second, that the collective wisdom of the cyberswarm will correct errors and ensure authority. These beliefs demand an unprecedented level of credulity, and even Larry Sanger (in an online article on Edge) is balking
5 Despite Sanger’s apostasy from the central tenet of the Wikipedia faith and his establishment of a resource based on expertise, the remaining faithful continue to add to, and the intellectually lazy to use, the fundamentally flawed resource, much to the chagrin of many professors and schoolteachers. Many professors have forbidden its use in papers. Even most of the terminally trendy plead with their students to use other resources.
5 A few endorse Wikipedia heartily. This mystifies me. Education is not a matter of popularity or of convenience--it is a matter of learning, of knowledge gained the hard way, and of respect for the human record. A professor who encourages the use of Wikipedia is the intellectual equivalent of a dietician who recommends a steady diet of Big Macs with everything.
5 The central lesson of our current response to the changes that digitization has wrought and is wreaking should be that it is not only possible but also good to respond with changes in the ways in which we do things as long as those changes are firmly rooted in an intellectual meritocracy. In turn, that meritocracy must be based on respect for expertise and learning, respect for individual achievement, respect for true research, respect for structures that confer authority and credentials, and respect for the authenticity of the human record.
j=Inside Higher Ed kw=criticism m=June 20 y=2007 r=20070627
A report on Michael Gorman's (EB) criticisms of "the Blog People," beginning with his essay in Library Journal two years ago. This debate is likened to that discussed by Edward Shils who aptly characterized those concerned with the preceding "superior or refined culture" relative to the "contemporary culture." The problem of Gorman is that he presumes everyone else is purposely trying to make things worse.
2 "The mass-produced nature of his culture," as Shils goes on to write, "which is necessary if he and his kind are to be satisfied in sufficient quantity and cheapness, prevents him from developing his taste and intelligence."
By contrast, the world before the advent of mass society (or of digital culture, perhaps) was elegant and rich and complex, or at least stable. The cultural products of "this legendary time," in Shils's skeptical account, "were vitally integrated into everyday life, the artist was aware of his function, man was in a state of reposeful self-possession.... Nothing factitious or meretricious existed." And respect for cultural authority was entrenched and almost automatic. As Shils puts it, "The educated classes were genuinely educated, and, despite the rigors of a fundamentally exploitative society, religious faith was geniune, artistic taste was elevated, and important problems were thought about with true sincerity." To repeat, Shils himself does not believe this; but such attitudes were actually pretty common in some circles.
3 the author critiques Gorman, not because instead tempered, but because Gorman "seems to imply that everybody else in the world is wittingly engaged in making things worse." Because of the abandonment of fundamental values, and losing sight of true literacy for things like visual, computer, and 21st-century literacies
4 The tone of Gorman's remedial lecture implies that educators now devote the better part of their day to teaching students to shove pencils up their nose while Googling for pornography. I do not believe this to be the case. (It would be bad, of course, if it were.)
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 13 y=2007 r=20070627
A response to Gorman's metaphor: when the author thinks of Goya, he thinks of his piece "Disasters of War" which was suppressed by the authorities
1 From his strange conflation of blogging with intelligent design, to his atavistic take on authority and individual expression it's clear that Michael Gorman misunderstands the potential of the Internet so thoroughly that he can't even be wrong about it. For the Internet is not the end of the responsible making and sharing of knowledge, but a tool--in fact a uniquely powerful creation of reasoning human minds--that fosters and empowers responsible individual expression. Also argues that digital Maoism really emerges when users are "cowed by authority".
1 Gorman fails to appreciate citizen journalism beyond the Drudge Report and Perez Hilton, and this is completely interesting project like Ethan Zuckerman's "Global Voices"
2 Does Gorman really believe, along with Andrew Keen, that “the most poorly educated and inarticulate among us” should not use the media to “express and realize themselves”? That they should keep quiet, learn their place, and bow to such bewigged and alienating confections as “authority” and “authenticity”? Authority, after all, flows ultimately from results, not from such hierophantic trappings as degrees, editorial mastheads, and neoclassical columns. And if the underprivileged (or under-titled) among us are supposed to keep quiet, who will enforce their silence—the government? Universities and foundations? Internet service providers and media conglomerates? Are these the authorities—or their avatars in the form of vetted, credentialed content—to whom it should be our privilege to defer?
2 Experience, expertise, and authority do retain their power on the web. What’s evolving now are tools to discover and amplify individual expertise wherever it may emerge. Maoist collectivism is bad—but remember that Maoism is a thing enabled and enforced by authority. Similarly, digital Maoism rears its head whenever we talk about limiting the right to individual expression that, with the power of the web behind it, is creating a culture of capricious beauty and quirky, surprising utility. Digital Maoism will emerge when users are cowed by authority, when they revert to the status of mere consumer, when the ISPs and the media conglomerates reduce the web to a giant cable TV box.
3 "historically, authority has not always been justified in such congenial terms." PMS as dysmenorrhea; Jim Crow, APA's classification of homosexuality;
4 there won't be any citizen surgery, or citizen bus driving because these things require" a pair of hands connected to functioning heads". If this doesn't mean to "openly accessible, digitally networked webs of knowledge" aren't changing other aspects of medical practice. The Web 2.0 is allowing people not only to assert freedom, "but to take up the responsibility mandated by the exercise of those rights."
4 What’s really exciting is the profound social discovery the technology allows us to make—that civil society, access to education and opportunity, and a culture that values expression can create a world of wildly individual consciousnesses, whose capacity for collaborative knowledge-making gives rise to authority of a new and emancipatory kind.
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 13 y=2007 r=20070627
A short response to Gorman's "The Sleep of Reason" (II) in which a response to the rhetorical question of whether computer technology can change the very nature of human intelligence. He isn't a "hive mind fabulist" but in his concern with how media is consumed -- rather than created -- he does believe we will move from being a "contemplative man" reading print towards that of the "flickering man" of hypertext.
1 He's being succeeded by Flickering Man, the fellow who darts from link to link, conjuring the world out of continually refreshed arrays of isolate pixels, shadows of shadows. The linearity of reason is blurring into the nonlinearity of impression; after five centuries of wakefulness, we're lapsing into a dream state.
1 it isn't about amateurs and professionals, expertise and its absence, not how we produce intellectual works, but how we consume them.
2 When Sergey Brin said that ?the perfect search engine would be like the mind of God,? he was neither hyperventilating nor blaspheming. He was giving us a peek at the future. We get the God we deserve.
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 27 y=2007 r=20070627
A caution that while much of what Gorman says is correct, the Internet's -- and Wikipedia -- are a useful tool, though imperfect, increasing the accessibility of knowledge. This shouldn't be thrown away for the sake of the notion of static knowledge that is blessed by an unaccountable authority
1-2 the author agrees with many of the laments of Gorman, and wishes to scream at the widely held view that America is a meritocracy. As a response, she has turned to people like herself, who share values and our journaling over educated. But perhaps this is like other privileged people who often prefer to live like ostriches and avoid those things they prefer not to see
2 the Internet is more than the connected elite," it smears and magnifies the off-line world" both the good and the bad.
3 Amidst this environment, it frustrates me to hear librarians speak about information dissemination while they create digital firewalls that lock people out of accessing knowledge unless they have the right academic credentials.
3 I entered the academy because I believe in knowledge production and dissemination. I am a hopeless Marxist. I want to equal the playing field; I want to help people gain access to information in the hopes that they can create knowledge that is valuable for everyone. I have lost faith in traditional organizations leading the way to mass access and am thus always on the lookout for innovative models to produce and distribute knowledge.
3 Unlike Dr. Gorman, Wikipedia brings me great joy. I see it as a fantastic example of how knowledge can be distributed outside of elite institutions. I have watched stubs of articles turn into rich homes for information about all sorts of subjects. What I like most about Wikipedia is the self-recognition that it is always a work-in- progress. The encyclopedia that I had as a kid was a hand-me-down; it stated that one day we would go to the moon. Today, curious poor youth have access to information in an unprecedented way. It may not be perfect, but it is far better than a privilege-only model of access.
4 knowledge is not static, or traditional publishing assumes it is.
4 the author was ejected from class for correcting a teacher's math and today gatekeepers have less power, "I don't think that this is always a bad thing."
5 Like paper, the Internet is a medium. People express a lot of crap through both mediums. Yet, should we denounce paper as inherently flawed? The Internet - and Wikipedia - change the rules for distribution and production.
5 Wikipedia is not perfect, but it is free and accessible and academics as producers of knowledge and teachers have a responsibility to help distribute knowledge. The Internet is a tool to do this, so why would we throw it away.
6 Like Dr. Gorman, I don't believe that all crowds are inherently wise. But I also don?t believe that all authorities are inherently wise. Especially not when they are vying for tenure.
7 Herein lies a missing piece in Dr. Gorman's puzzle. The society that he laments has lost faith in the public good. Elitism and greed have gotten in the way. By upholding the values of the elite, Dr. Gorman is perpetuating views that are destroying efforts to make knowledge a public good. Wikipedia is a public-good project. It is the belief that division of labor has value and that everyone has something to contribute, if only a spelling correction. It is the belief that all people have the inalienable right to knowledge, not just those who have academic chairs. It is the belief that the powerful have no right to hoard the knowledge. And it is the belief that people can and should collectively help others gain access to information and knowledge.
7 Personally, I hold these truths to be self-evident, and I'd rather see us put in the effort to make Wikipedia an astounding resource that can be used by all people than to try to dismantle it simply because it means change.
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 27 y=2007 r=20070627
A dream of Gorman, an argument that the technology utopianism inherent in these Web 2.0 visions is dangerous, much like French and Marxist revolutionaries. Instead, which emulate the caution found in the Federalist Papers about the downsides of the social, and the necessary checks and balances
1 is Google's streamlined "single search box" "sacrificing systematic and substantive scholarship on an altar of visual elegance and design." What happens when everything is digitized?
2 there is more to "organizing the world's information" than just digitizing and providing "relevance-ranked" keywords.
2 Modernism distorted the definition of "equality" to make it fit into a designer’s world; aren’t we doing the same with the word "relevance" to make it fit into a programmer’s world?
2 librarians like relevance-ranked keywords because "it holds out to them division of free indexing done outside the library", but this is based on a faith that the "invisible hand" of collective wisdom will be adequate and accurate
4 modernism was a good thing, but presently "people's faith in the transformative effects of gadgets" is utopian, and as Gorman points out, a siren song.
5 today's Futurists should read the Federalist Papers
5 The authors of these essays, which provide the rational grounding of our Constitution’s framework of checks and balances, had no idealistic illusions about the perfectibility of human nature. To the contrary, they assumed that short-sightedness, selfishness, and ignorance are constant factors in human life, and that we are always in need of protection from each other. The system they crafted, based on such assumptions, continually prevents the accumulations of power to which unregulated, unchecked, and unbalanced “invisible hand” operations lead. The French, in contrast, assumed that human nature freed, from the restrictions of the old ways (the ancien regime), would automatically drift, if not positively spring, directly towards Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity. What they found in practice, however, was that unchecked human nature led, instead, to the Terror and the guillotine. Their naive assumptions proved disastrous in less than a decade; French society was rescued from chaos only by a strong dictatorship.
6 where is the French, or later Marxist, revolutionaries made too many "naïve assumptions" that proved disastrous
j=Britannica Blog: Web 2.0 Forum kw=criticism m=June 25th y=2007 r=20070627
An argument that Web 2.0 is just a marketing term for convenient shorthand (e.g., like the 60s) and in fact there's a lot of mundane and naughty stuff on the Internet sapping much of the enthusiasm he had for it
1 Web 2.0 is only a marketing term, a shorthand "for complexes of ideas, feelings, events, and memories" that can mislead us. Much like the 60s, the civil rights movement. When did the 60s begin, and the 60s and?
2 though he uses the Internet every day for work, and perhaps because of this, he now views it as full of mundane and "naughty" stuff; exhausting some of the initial enthusiasm he had for the Internet
j=Britannica Blog kw=criticism m=June 18 y=2007 r=20070629
While the Internet makes lives better in many ways, we still must use these resources well, with judgment, intelligence, and with the values of Western scholarship.
1 The siren song of the Internet is audible everywhere these days and we cannot be deaf to its charms and benefits, though we can avoid being lured to intellectual destruction by it.
1 Makes a distinction between information, knowledge, understanding, and wisdom; argues that digitization is not the answer to all the ills of the world.
1 But we must exercise judgment, use digital resources intelligently, and import into the digital world the values that have pervaded scholarship in Western societies for many centuries.
1 the Luddites had genuine grievances with a mechanization other work and the adverse consequences for their lives
1 One guiding principle in seeing things as they are is reference for the human record and for that countless individual minds that have created a texts, images, and the symbolic representations therein.
1-2 information is dated, knowledge integrates and synthesizes data, understanding is achieved when our learning enables us to become an authority and teacher, wisdom is when we integrate our learning "with a whole life lived."
2 To think that digitization is the answer to all that ails the world is to ignore the uncomfortable fact that most people, young and old, prefer to interact with recorded knowledge and literature in the form of print on paper.
j=Britannica Blog kw=criticism m=June 19 y=2007 r=20070629
Makes a distinction, from library science, between recall (percentage of pertinent documents retrieved) and relevance) their appropriateness to the query). Complains that access to the "more solid and reputable websites" is limited because they are fee-based. Since the ancients we respected authorial intent, intellectual property, and plagiarism is a significant issue today. We need to renew an understanding or research which includes the "complete and critical investigation of, or experimentation in" phenomena. In using texts, we should use primary sources, consult authoritative secondary sources, and not recognize googling a topic is research. Claims Wales said "If you can't google it, it doesn't exist" and characterize it as his philosophy that must be resisted by all teachers for the authors preferred notion of research. Gorman later apologizes for the attribution of the quotation to Wales, and says that he got it from Stacy Schiff's article.
j=Britannica Blog kw=criticism m=June 18 y=2007 r=20070629
Notes that Web 2.0 folks complained about the transparency of things like Britannica, but it is actually preferable because we know who the author is, their credentials, background, and we know their motives: profit.
kw=criticism m=June 20 y=2007 r=20070629
A response to Gorman's "siren song" that notes despite the fact that the Luddite's were genuinely threatened, that doesn't mean such folks should have a "veto power over technological change," has Gorman seems to be implying. Granted, there are differences between digital and paper media, but we may end up one day with the best of both worlds, rather than being factored by a false dichotomy
1 By labeling the Luddite program legitimate, Gorman seems to be suggesting that incumbents are right to expect veto power over technological change.
m=February 28 y=2007 r=20070226 14:06 UTC kw=criticism
An example of critical paranoia. URLs to emails broke because they changed the domain the lists were hosted on. The fact that this breaks mailman is a well known fact as I've blogged about.
Yes, that's right. Someone sort-of-cunningly reindexed the month.
Why would they do this? Presumably, it's an attempt to hide the post. They know they'd get caught if they just deleted it, but if they just "shift" it a bit... sneaky, boys.
or=wikien-l m=March 18 y=2007 r=20070318 kw=criticism
To instruct, I'm setting up a hypothetical situation, itemizing every possible reaction Wikipedia could make to it, and proposing a critical response.
SITUATION #1: A webcomic named FooBarBaz exists, and has a small but fervent fan community, but is little known outside it.
a) Wikipedia doesn't have an article about FooBarBaz.
b) Wikipedia has an article about FooBarBaz, but it's just a stub.
c) The article on FooBarBaz has been expanded into a lengthy, comprehensive, well-sourced article with a wealth of information about the webcomic, its history, its contributions to the medium, and so on.
d) The article on FooBarBaz was brought up for deletion, and an AfD debate resulted.
[i] After a fairly small amount of participation on the AfD, the article was deleted by consensus.
[ii] After a fairly small amount of participation in the AfD, the article was kept by consensus.
[iii] There was a long, contentious AfD debate, with lots of heated flaming on both sides. (The ultimate outcome is unimportant.)
j=Rough Type m=April 26 y=2007 r=20070430 11:38 UTC kw=criticism
Whatever happens between Wikipedia and Citizendium, here's what Wales and Sanger cannot be forgiven for: They have taken the encyclopedia out of the high school library, where it belongs, and turned it into some kind of totem of "human knowledge." Who the hell goes to an encyclopedia looking for "truth," anyway?
Now that I'm warmed up, I have to say there's another thing that gets my goat about Sanger, Wales, and all the other pixel-eyed apologists for the collective mediocritization of culture. They're all in the business of proclaiming the dawn of a new, more perfect age of human cognition and understanding, made possible by the pulsing optical fibers of the internet.
j=The Chronicle v= n=29 m=March 23 y=2007 r=20070507 13:08 UTC kw=criticism
A middle-road consideration of Middleburry debate
I learned from Mr. Liebowitz that the news media had exaggerated the real story. The history department's policy that students not cite Wikipedia in papers or examinations is consistent with an existing policy on not citing sources such as Encyclopaedia Britannica. It is hardly a "ban." It is a definition of what constitutes credible scholarly or archival sources.
Rather than banning Wikipedia, why not make studying what it does and does not do part of the research-and-methods portion of our courses? Instead of resorting to the "Delete" button for new forms of collaborative knowledge made possible by the Internet, why not make the practice of research in the digital age the object of study?
I also find that my book purchasing has probably increased threefold because of Wikipedia.
j=Perspectives m=May 09 y=2007 r=20070507 13:09 UTC kw=criticism
Discusses an idea for an in class assignment using WP
I have a confession to make—I am a "Wiki-victim." In the course of researching for a biweekly local history column that I write, I turned to Wikipedia for a quick answer to a question I had. As it turned out, the information was incorrect, and that error made its way into print—much to my embarrassment. The error was a simple transposition of one word, but in the specific context I was writing, that small error took on a completely different significance. I had as much reason as any one of my students to doubt the validity of Wikipedia as a source.
What is most troubling about the "anti-Wiki" movement is that it tends to single out Wikipedia for being an online source rather than for being an encyclopedia. It had been my policy in the past simply to assume that encyclopedias were out of bounds in college-level work no matter what their origin. But noting the uproar about Wiki's reliability made me rethink that attitude. In June 2006, T. Mills Kelly of the blog Edwired asked, apropos of the growing controversy about (and usage of) Wikipedia: "So, what's a history teacher to do? The same things we've always done with new resources. We have to design learning opportunities for our students that help them to see the strengths and weaknesses of any resource." 2
m=August 23 y=2007 r=20070827 12:20 UTC kw=criticism
A complaint about the officious legalisms of WP in the case of speedy deletion
"This page may meet Wikipedia’s criteria for speedy deletion. The given reason is: It is a very short article providing little or no context (CSD A1), contains no content whatsoever (CSD A3), consists only of links elsewhere (CSD A3) or a rephrasing of the title (CSD A3). If this page does not meet the criteria for speedy deletion, or you intend to fix it, please remove this notice, but do not remove this notice from pages that you have created yourself."
It’s incredible to me that the community in Wikipedia has come to this, that articles so obviously “keep” just a year ago, are being challenged and locked out. When I was active back on the mailing lists in 2004, I was a well known deletionist.
“Wiki isn’t paper, but it isn’t an attic,” I would say. Selectivity matters for a quality encyclopedia.
It’s as if there is a Soup Nazi culture now in Wikipedia. There are throngs of deletion happy users, like grumpy old gatekeepers, tossing out customers and articles if they don’t comply to some new prickly hard-nosed standard.
It’s like I’m in some netherworld from the movie Brazil, being asked for my Form 27B(stroke)6.
comments
m=July 10 y=2007
Good. I had no idea what the code “CSD-G4″ meant either until I looked it up, and a place where things are deleted with cryptic bureaucratic codes, rather than evaluated with common sense based on their merit, seems a rather cold and unwelcoming place.
m=July 18 y=2007
Hey Andrew, I feel your pain.
You’d be welcome to work on the article in the Citizendium. We’re the new home for inclusionists; we like information more than following rules. This shouldn’t be too surprising for me to say, you know; I am the author of “Ignore All Rules”! We still have the village feel, and which is in the process of developing a sensible, scalable, online polity.
In the future, if things come to a similar pass on CZ, you’ll see me leading the charge back to sensibility.
response
or=wikien-l m=August 26 y=2007 r=20070826 kw=criticism
policy against linking to so-called "attack sites", with a variety of targets. If this were being done by trolls trying to discredit the policy by making it look silly (as has often been alleged by its supporters when some ridiculous case or other comes up in that regard), they'd be doing a very good job in their trolling, but it seems like everybody involved in these recent cases is actually totally serious. There's no need for trolling to make the policy look silly... the supporters of the policy do a perfectly fine job of it themselves.
j=New York Times Magazine m=May 14 y=2006 r=20070829
An argument about the rightness of Google's efforts to digitize books and the implications of a Liquid Library. Reminiscent of Otlet.
1 The dream is an old one: to have in one place all knowledge, past and present. All books, all documents, all conceptual works, in all languages. It is a familiar hope, in part because long ago we briefly built such a library. The great library at Alexandria, constructed around 300 B.C., was designed to hold all the scrolls circulating in the known world.
1 Google is now pursuing this dream
scanning the library of libraries
what happens when books connect
2 The real magic will come in the second act, as each word in each book is cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, annotated, remixed, reassembled and woven deeper into the culture than ever before. In the new world of books, every bit informs another; every page reads all the other pages.
2 The link and the tag may be two of the most important inventions of the last 50 years.
Books: The Liquid Version
3 might be able to unravel books, and create your own playlists, such is a cookbook shelf of Cajun recipes
3 At the same time, once digitized, books can be unraveled into single pages or be reduced further, into snippets of a page. These snippets will be remixed into reordered books and virtual bookshelves.
3 when all the books of the world become part of a single liquid fabric: works on the margins will find a small audience larger than the zero they enjoy now, it will deepen our grasp of history since every source is available and potentially cross-linked, and will cultivate any sense of authority as our earlier ignorance will be highlighted, and the golden peaks of our knowledge are drawn with completeness". Finally, it will be better than Ask Jeeves with many new types of functions and services not yet envisioned
the triumph of the copy
the moral imperative to scan
the case against Google
when business models collide
search changes everything
m=November y=2005 r=20070921
The author identifies the origins of the concept (brainstorm for a conference in which there are many VCs and Tim O'Reilly was wearing a suit even) and highlights the features: of AJAX, democracy, and "don't maltreat users,"
m=September 30 p=O'Reilly y=2005 r=20070921
One of the more specific than complete attempts to define Web 2.0 including the a comparison of the number of 1.0 and 2.0 sites, and characteristics of: the Web as a platform, harnessing collective intelligence, end of the software release cycle, lightweight programming models, software above the level of a single device, which are your experiences. Also includes Web 2.0 design patterns: the Long tail, it is the next Intel inside, users add value, network effects by default, some rights reserved, the perpetual beta, "cooperate, don't control", software above the level of a single device.
8 If an essential part of Web 2.0 is harnessing collective intelligence, turning the web into a kind of global brain, the blogosphere is the equivalent of constant mental chatter in the forebrain, the voice we hear in all of our heads. It may not reflect the deep structure of the brain, which is often unconscious, but is instead the equivalent of conscious thought. And as a reflection of conscious thought and attention, the blogosphere has begun to have a powerful effect.
j=The Daily Standard m=Febuary 15 y=2006 r=20070915 19:03 UTC kw=criticism
Keen calls Lessig an intellectural property communist
Just as Marx seduced a generation of European idealists with his fantasy of self-realization in a communist utopia, so the Web 2.0 cult of creative self-realization has seduced everyone in Silicon Valley.
Between the book-ends of Jobs and Page lies the rest of Silicon Valley including radical communitarians like Craig Newmark (of Craigslist.com), intellectual property communists such as Stanford Law Professor Larry Lessig, economic cornucopians like Wired magazine editor Chris "Long Tail" Anderson, and new media moguls Tim O'Reilly and John Batelle.
y=2006 r=20070921
Another engagement with the notion of Web 2.0 (groups creating and sharing ideas), that also attempts to define a Web 3.0 (societies) and 4.0 (singularity)
1 So here we go:
Web 1.0 is about allowing individuals to create and share ideas.
Web 2.0 is about allowing groups to create and share ideas.
Web 3.0 is about allowing societies to create and share ideas.
Web 4.0 is the singularity.
a=New York p=Hyperion y=2006 r=20070913
Looking at various media markets including books (Amazon), music (Rhapsody), and movies (Netflix), the author argues there are more niche goods than popular hits, and the costs of reaching these niches is now decreasing because of the structure of the Internet (few distribution bottlenecks, abundant information, no shelf space constraints), and new tools that make it easier to cater to specific tastes. An implication does something like Wal-Mart is elitist because they offer only the most popular products.
Chapter 0: introduction
7 contrary to the 80/20 rule (where 20% of a product accounts for 80% of sales and nearly 100% of profits) in the digital content business 98% of a deep catalog can generate sales
8 Netflix estimates that 95% of its 25,000 DVDs is rent the least once a quarter
chapter 1: the Long tail: how technology is turning mass markets into millions of niches
25-26 However, islands are, of course just the tips of vast undersea mountains. When the cost of distribution falls, it's like the water level falling in the ocean. All of a sudden things are revealed that were previously hidden. And there's much, much more under the current waterline than above it. What we are now starting to see, as online retailers begin to capitalize on their extraordinary economic efficiencies, is the shape of a massive mountain of choice emerging where before there was just a peek.
26 Wal-Mart doesn't carry 99% of the music albums on the market today, Blockbuster carries 3000 of the 200,000 TV, film and documentaries available
chapter 2: the rise and fall of the hit: lockstep culture is the exception, not the rule
38 Top 40 died because: the rise of the iPod, the cell phone (we can now talk to one another rather than listening to the radio), the 1996 telecommunications act added thousands of FM stations, Clear Channel (centralized programming), and the FCC's obscenity crackdown
40 Instead of the office water cooler, which crosses cultural boundaries as only the random assortment of personalities found in the workplace can, we are increasingly forming our own tribes, groups bound together more by infinity and shared interests and by default broadcast schedules. These days our water coolers are increasingly virtual -- there are many different ones, and the people who gather around them are self selected. We are turning from a mass-market back into a niche nation, defined now not biogeography but by our interests.
Chapter 3: a short history of the Long tail: from the wish book to the virtual shopping cart
42-43 Sears and Roebuck was innovative and I was able to offer a massive selection to world consumers (enabled by volume buying, railroads, post office, and parcel post)
45 the supermarket
46 toll-free calls and home shopping
47 online shopping and Amazon
50 John Robb, a military analyst who runs global guerrillas website, argues that traditional warfare is ending because of the democratization of the tools of warfare, and "amplification of the damage caused by niche producers of warfare", and the acceleration of word-of-mouth whereby they can recruit, and propagandize
Chapter 4: the three forces of the Long Tail: make it, get it out there, and help me find it
52 The theory of the Long Tail can be boiled down to this: Our culture and economy are increasingly shifting away from a focus on a relatively small number of hits (mainstream products and markets) at the head of the demand curve, and moving toward a huge number of niches in detail. In an era without the constraints of physical shelf space and other bottlenecks of distribution, narrowly targeted goods and services can be as economically attractive as mainstream fare. But that's not enough. Demand must follow this new supply.
53 ... six themes of the Long Tail age: there are far more niche goods than hits... the costs of reaching those niches is now falling dramatically... it is now possible to offer a massively expanded variety of products... these "filters" can drive demand down tale... the demand curve flattens... there are so many niche products that collectively they can compromise the market rivaling the hits... natural shape of demand is revealed
how long tales emerge
54-55 the forces of: democratization of the tools of production, cutting the cost of consumption by democratizing distribution, connecting supply and demand
Chapter 5: the new producers: never underestimate the power of a million amateurs with the keys to the factory
62 Marx's hunting in the morning, fishing in the afternoon, rearing cattle in the evening, criticizing after dinner
63 garage band bloggers, amateur production
64 Doc Searls: "producerism"
67 the Seigenthaler incident
68 Wikipedian and Google rely upon the collective wisdom of millions; Surowiecki's the wisdom of crowds; Kevin Kelly's "out of control"
69 probabilistic systems benefit from the wisdom of crowds and scale nicely in breadth and depth
70 The point is not that every Wikipedia entry is probabilistic, but the entire encyclopedia behaves probabilistically. Your odds of getting a substantive, up-to-day, and accurate entry for any given subject are excellent on Wikipedia, even if every individual entry isn't excellent.
-- he's obviously never used the random article link!
71 What makes Wikipedia really extraordinary is that improves over time, organically healing itself as if it's huge and growing army of tenders for an immune system, ever vigilant and quick to respond to anything that threatens the organism. And like a biological system, it evolves, selecting for traits that help it stay one step ahead of the predators and pathogens in its ecosystem.
71 The true miracle Wikipedia is that this open system of amateur user contributions and edit doesn't simply collapse into anarchy. Instead, it is somehow self-organized the most comprehensive encyclopedia in history. Reversing entropy's arrow, Jimmy Wales's catalytic moment -- putting up a few initial entries and a mechanism for others to add to them -- has actually created order from chaos.
71 The result is a very different kind of encyclopedia, when completely unbounded by space and production constraints.
72 at the top of the curve, the top 1000 articles, Wikipedians competing with professionals but has the advantage of being up to date, unlimited length, copious links, and many audiovisuals; in the middle, between 1000 and 80,000 subjects, Wikipedia begins to pull ahead. The average length of her Britannica entry is 678 words, Wikipedia has 200,000 entries longer than that. In the Tale, from 80,000 one million, Wikipedia stands alone.
Chapter 6: the new markets: how to create an aggregator that can stretch from head to tail
chapter 7: the new taste makers: the ants have megaphones, what are they saying?
Chapter 8: Long tail economics: scarcity, abundance, and the death of the 80/20 rule
130 Pareto/Zipf distributions
131 the 80/20 rule is often misunderstood for three reasons: it's never exactly 80/20, the 80 and 20 don't have to add up to 100 as the one is a percentage of products, and the other percentage of sales; people use it to describe different phenomenon
131 the Long tail is the death of the Rule: "Even if 20% of the products account for 80% of the revenue, that's no reason not to carry the other 80% of the products."
137 depends on the market: spending power is often finite, but you can get more for your time and money, non-rivalrous and scarce...
chapter 9: a short head: the world the shelf created, for better or worse
chapter 11: niche culture: what's it like to live in a long tale world?
Chapter 12: the infinite screen: video after television
Chapter 13: beyond entertainment: how far can niche revolution reach?
Chapter 14: Long tail rules: how to create a consumer paradise
217 the secret: make everything available, help me find it
218-226 move inventory way in... or way out; let customers do the work; one distribution method, product, or price doesn't fit all; share information, think "and," and not "or."; trust the market to do your job; understand the power of free
m=December 10 y=2006 r=20070828 15:00 UTC kw=criticism
Web 2.0 is the business revolution in the computer industry caused by the move to the internet as platform, and an attempt to understand the rules for success on that new platform. Chief among those rules is this: Build applications that harness network effects to get better the more people use them. (This is what I've elsewhere called "harnessing collective intelligence.")
Ironically, Tim Berners-Lee's original Web 1.0 is one of the most "Web 2.0" systems out there -- it completely harnesses the power of user contribution, collective intelligence, and network effects. It was Web 1.5, the dotcom bubble, in which people tried to make the web into something else, that fought the internet, and lost.)
Other rules (which mostly fall out of this one) include:
Don't treat software as an artifact, but as a process of engagement with your users. ("The perpetual beta")
Open your data and services for re-use by others, and re-use the data and services of others whenever possible. ("Small pieces loosely joined")
Don't think of applications that reside on either client or server, but build applications that reside in the space between devices. ("Software above the level of a single device")
Remember that in a network environment, open APIs and standard protocols win, but this doesn't mean that the idea of competitive advantage goes away. (Clayton Christensen: "The law of conservation of attractive profits")
Chief among the future sources of lock in and competitive advantage will be data, whether through increasing returns from user-generated data (eBay, Amazon reviews, audioscrobbler info in last.fm, email/IM/phone traffic data as soon as someone who owns a lot of that data figures out that's how to use it to enable social networking apps, GPS and other location data), through owning a namespace (Gracenote/CDDB, Network Solutions), or through proprietary file formats (Microsoft Office, iTunes). ("Data is the Intel Inside")
"Defining" a business model transition is always hard. We had a "personal computer" era long before the business rules were clear. A deeper understanding of the new rules of business in the PC era, and a ruthless application of them before anyone else understood them as well, is what made Microsoft the king of the hill in that era.
a=New York p=Doubleday y=2007 r=20070829
Engages the metaphor from Huxley and Borges (i.e., The Total Library) to argue that Web 2.0, user generated content, is like a thousand monkeys from the typewriters banging out unreliable, an authoritative, and lowly content. He attributes the death of independent bookstores, record labels, music stores, and challenges in the film industry, as well as other creative industries, to "MySpace meets YouTube meets Wikipedia meets Google." Concludes by arguing it has frightening moral consequences as well in terms of addiction, camping, pornography, and a loss of privacy.
Chapter 0: introduction
1 recalling the hype of the first Internet bubble of 1999, an entrepreneur tells the author of his project by describing it as "It's MySpace meets YouTube meets Wikipedia meets Google on steroids."
2 he invokes Huxley, but not Aldous of Brave New World, but T. H. Huxley the author of the "infinite monkey theorem."
-- this also reminds me of Norbert Wiener
3 Generation Y utopianists can't tell the difference between "credible news by objective professional journalists and what they read on joeshmoe.blogspot.com... Every posting is just another person's version of the truth; every fiction is just another person's version of the facts."
4 It's the blind leading the blind -- infinite monkeys providing infinite information for its readers, perpetuating the cycle of misinformation and ignorance.
7 the institutions that have created our news, music, literature, television, and movies are under assault as well
8 the San Francisco Chronicle readership is down 16%, in 2007 Time Inc. laid off all most 300 people; sale of recorded music has dropped 20% between 2000 and 2006; Disney has announced 650 job cuts in 2006, accompanied by a 50% drop in animated movies produced a year
9 What happens, you might ask, when ignorance meets egoism meets bad taste meets mob rule?... The monkeys take over... In today's cult of the amateur, the monkeys are running the show. With the infinite typewriters, they are authoring the future. And we might not like how it reads.
Chapter 1: the great seduction
12 the Friends of O'Reilly (FOO) Camp is where the author lost his enthusiasm
15 Everyone was simultaneously broadcasting themselves, but nobody was listening. Out of this anarchy, it suddenly became clear that what was governing the infinite monkeys now in putting away on the Internet was the law of Digital Darwinism, the survival of the loudest and most opinionated. Under these rules, the only way to intellectually prevail despite infinite filibustering.
-- this seems like people who tried to control print
16 the great seduction is a false promise, a smokescreen, "delivering superficial observations of the world around us rather than deep analysis, shrill opinion rather than considered judgment."
18 e.g., "Al Gore's army of penguins" YouTube video created by the neocon satire group DCI
19 British Prime Minister James Callaghan: "A lie can make its way around the world before the truth has a chance to put its boots on."
20 Wikipedia nonsense about Ken Lay's apparent suicide
21 search engines know a frightening amount about us
22 Our trust in conventional advertising is being further compromised by the spoof advertisements proliferating on the Internet.
-- what trust, and was a well considered in the first place?
25 notions of authorship and intellectual property have been compromised towards a new permissiveness of cut-and-paste
24 Lessig and William Gibson "law of the appropriation of intellectual property"
24 a survey by Education Week found that 54% of students admitted to plagiarizing from the Internet
25 our aesthetic sensibilities are under assault from any "wiki-novel", and truth is distorted
the cost of democratization
27 every defunct record label, newspaper reporter, and independent bookstore is a consequence of free user-generated Internet content
27 What you may not realize is that what is free is actually costing us a fortune.
28 July 2006 Business 2.0 cover story declares "YOU! The Consumer As Creator" are the people that matter the most; Time Magazine's 2006 person of the year was YOU
29 Every visit to Wikipedians free information hive means one less customer for professionally researched and edited encyclopedia such as Britannica.
29 Chris Anderson's The Long Tail is seductive but there's no room to nurture talent
31 But the more self-created content that gets dumped onto the Internet, the harder it becomes to distinguish the good from the bad -- and to make money on any of it.
-- the Encyclopedia was a symptom and response to the proliferation of print, Wikipedia is similar for the Web
33 NBC couldn't even afford to pay Steve Carrell to appear in The Office online mini-episodes
33 in the short time since foo Camp 2004, Web 2.0's narcissistic, self-congratulatory, self-generated content revolution has exploded.
Chapter 2: the noble amateur
35 the author heard the term "noble amateur" in 2004 over breakfast with a Friend of O'Reilly
36 The traditional meaning of the word "amateur" is very clear. An amateur is a hobbyist, knowledgeable or otherwise, someone who does not make a living from his or her field of interest, a layperson, lacking credentials, a dabbler.
39 Wikipedians where they're amateur badge with pride, but Marshall Poe says it is really only good for common knowledge
40 Stacy Schiff: "Wikipedia may be the world's most ambitious vanity press."
40 Jimmy Wales: "To me, the key thing is getting it right. I don't care for a high school kid or a Harvard professor." The EssJay scandal
41 But the reverse is actually true -- he's [Jimmy Wales] a counter-enlightenment guy, a wide-eyed-dramatic, seducing us with the ideal of the noble amateur.
41 Bomis as the Playboy of the Internet
43 Dr. William Connolley, an expert climate modeler, had to argue with an aggressive Wikipedians editor, and was eventually put on editorial parole by the arbitration committee
-- yes, he was considered to be aggressive with reverts, and was limited to one revert per day for environmental pages; of his two opponents JonGwynne was banned from Wikipedia for three months and banned from editing climate related articles for six months, Cortonin had a six-month ban from editing certain articles
44 Wikipedia "with its millions of amateur editors and unreliable content" is at 17, Britannica.com "with its 100 noble prize winners and 4000 expert contributors" is 5128
46 The free information really isn't free; we all end up paying for it one way or another with the most valuable resource of all -- our time.
Citizen journalists
47 That adds up to millions of unskilled, untrained, unpaid, unknown "journalists" --1000 fold growth between 1996 and 2006 -- spewing their (mis)information helps in the cyber world.
47 Matt Drudge; Dan Gillmor
48 They flaunt their lack of training and formal qualifications as evidence of their calling, their passion, and their selfless pursuit of the truth, claiming that their amateur status allows them to give us a less-biased, less-filtered picture of the world and make it from traditional news. In reality this is not so.
49 Saracevic: bloggers don't go to jail for protecting their sources
-- is this still true?
52 Such amateurs treat blogging as a moral calling rather than a profession tempered by accepted standards...
the liquid Library
57 In a May 2006 New York Times Magazine "manifesto," Kelly describes this as the "Liquid Version" of the book, a universal library in which "each book is cross-linked, clustered, cited, extracted, indexed, analyzed, agitated, remixed, reassembled, and moving deeper into the culture than ever before." ... Once digitized," Kelly says, "books can be unraveled into single pages or be reduced further, into snippets of the page. These snippets will be remixed into recorded books and virtual bookshelves." It is the digital equivalent of tearing out the pages of all the books in the world, shredding them line by line, and pasting them back together in infinite combinations. In his view, this results in "a web of names and a community of ideas." In mine, it foretells the death of culture.
-- very Otlet
57 To anyone with most elemental appreciation for the sanctity of the book and respect for the toils of the author, the implications of what Kelly suggests are, well, obscene.
59 It's rather like an expert chef who, instead of cooking a fine meal, provides the raw ingredients for the diner. Or the surgeon who, instead of performing the surgery, leaves the amateur in the operating chamber with some surgical instruments and a brief pep talk.
59 the author can't conceive Johann Bach releasing him his Brandenburg concertos to be remixed or matched by the public
a burrito in every hand
61 Wal-Mart, Nike, MasterCard, Toyota, L'Oreal, Cingular, Nestlé, and American Express have all run user generated marketing contests
62 for the 2007 Super Bowl Frito-Lay paid $10,000 to each of the five finalists, it probably would have paid $381,000 for a professional agency to produce the thirty second spot
Chapter 3: truth and lies
65 There are no gatekeepers to filter truth from fiction, genuine content from advertising, legitimate information from errors or outright deceit.
can you believe it?
66 Welcome to the truth, Web 2.0 style.
66 the attack on Brad Miller claiming he spent money on the masturbation habits of old men and teenage girls watching pornography, instead of cancer research
67 The problem is that the viral, editor-free nature of YouTube allows anyone -- from neo-Nazis, to propagandists, to campaign staffers -- to anonymously post deceptive, misleading, manipulative, or out-of-context videos.
68 it is creating a "tabloid-style gotcha culture"
68 The YouTubification of politics as a threat to civic culture. It infantilizes the political process, silencing public discourse in leading the future of the government up to 30-second video clip's shot by camcorder-wielding amateurs with political agendas.
the truth about 9/11
scammers and spammers
sex, lies, and the Internet
71 Fortuny's outing of people responding to his casual encounters solicitation on Craigslist
71 Julie's fraudulent posting on dontdatehimgirl.com
74 traditional newspaper owners are accountable for their content, website owners disclaim all responsibility
75 Before the Web 2.0, our collective intellectual history has been when driven by the careful aggregation of truth -- through professionally edited books and reference materials, newspapers, and radio and television.
-- he completely ignores all literature and concern regarding privileged history and journalism
lonely girls and sock puppets
77 journalists like Hiltzik and Siegel were suspended from the publications for misrepresenting themselves online "in a way that would never have been possible before the advent of 2.0 technologies."
the blogosphere and the bazaar
79 some argue Web 2.0 is like a democratic culture of the 18th century coffeehouse, but "Samuel Johnson, Edmund Burke, and James Boswell didn't hide behind aliases while debating one another."
-- but their contemporaries such as Ben Franklin masqueraded under pseudonyms, and even argued for or against themselves
81 the accusations that Barack Obama had gone to madrasah, Fox news was happy to pick up on the story
85 there is no one like Edward R. Murrow and Walter Cronkite today
Library of Babel
84 Jorge Luis Borges' (1939) The Total Library predicted "the horrors of the infinite library, one that has no center, no logic."
85 splogs (spam blogs: software generated blogs to trick search engines) and floggers (paid to blog)
TiVo and tea parties
87 Pew Internet and American Life Project study: 62% of Web browsers can not distinguish between paid and unpaid sites among search results
89 because of our mistrust of traditional commercials, Web 2.0 democratized media must make its advertisements appear to be something than other than what they are
92 politicians will buy channels on YouTube to trash their opponents, marketers will do the same to review their own products
92 In a media without gatekeepers, where one's real identity is often hidden or disguised, the truly empowered are the big companies with a huge advertising budgets. In theory, Web 2.0 gives amateurs a voice. But in reality it's often those with the loudest, most convincing message, and the most money to spread it, who are being heard.
the wisdom of crowds
chapter 4: the Day the music died [site a]
Chapter 5: the Day the music died [side b]
114 Charles Dickens did make any money from the American sales of his books
116 Kevin Kelly argues that it is impossible to protect texts, so we might as well open them up. That's like saying because a car might be stolen, you should leave the keys in the ignition
116 for Kelly the value of a book is not in the author's achievements, but the ways in which it can be annotated, tag, or linked
Hollywood in crisis
122 bookstores can't compete on competition, so Chris Anderson, of the Long Tail thinks they are roadkill
when the ink bleeds
where is the money?
137 MySpace is not yet profitable, but it is predicted to be worth $15 billion within three years
137-138 So while our record stores, newspaper companies, and radio stations are struggling just to survive, were pumping all our money instead into businesses that offer nothing more than infinite advertising space in exchange for user-generated nonsense that couldn't be published or distributed to any professional source.
God is dead
Chapter 6: moral disaster
147 Craig Hogan, and otherwise outstanding student, robbed a bank in order to pay for his online gambling addiction
155 The number of pornographic sites is multiplied, too -- seventeenfold, in fact, from 88,000 porn sites in 2000 to 1.6 million in 2004
156 children's exposure to pornography
159 a 13-year-old girl into goth porn
Chapter 7:1984 (version 2.0)
Chapter 8: solutions
196-199 we need more regulation to control behavior online: gambling, online fraud, identity theft, intellectual property theft, sexual predators
200 the government can only go so far, parents are critical
202 Which brings me to my final point: Parents must demand the front lines in the battle to protect children from the evils lurking on the Web 2.0
204 Instead of developing technology, I believe that our real moral responsibility is to protect the mainstream media against the cult of the amateur. We need to reform rather than revolutionize an information and entertainment economy that, over the last 200 years, has reinforced American values and made our culture the envy of the world.... we destroy it at our peril.
205 let's not replace it with "YOU!"
j=The Huffington Post m=August 16 y=2007 kw=criticism r=20070927
A response/review a Keen's case which Weinberger breaks into two arguments: traditional media has nurtured talent and produced gems, and media has no way of similarly finding and polishing talent. Weinberger argues this comparative analysis is difficult (Keen "dredges up every Net problem he can"), and Keen confuses the former means of producing talent with talent itself, which went to data will be able to do, just differently.
5 I think that's one reason so many of us find Keen's book frustrating. It's like reading an argument against democracy that keeps pointing at how many people there are and how much they disagree with one another. That's not an argument against democracy. That's the problem democracy was invented to solve. Likewise, the Web was invented to solve the problem of scale. The difference from democracy is that the Web just keeps growing and we keep inventing new ways to keep it lumpy.
j=Sociological Research One Line n=5 v=12 r=20071010
Reviews some of the sociological research on Web 2.0 phenomena; focuses on the examples of Wikis, folksonomies, mash-ups, and social networks; considers the three possible agendas of the changing balance between production and consumption, the mainstreaming of private information into the public domain, and the emergence of a new rhetoric of "democratization" (e.g,. facebook, ratemyprofessor).
a new rhetoric of the "democratization"
3.8-3.10 Online student forums: horrible professors, petitions against the worst the lecturers, sexist and offensive content, the video of the teacher scratching himself
sociology in Web 2.0?
4.3 future research will have to "come from inside the information itself" (Lash, 2002: vii). One will have to be a "wikizen" and part of the collaborative cultures of web 2.0
4.4 web 2.0 tools themselves could be used for research
An army of Davids: how markets and technology empower ordinary people to beat big media, big government, and other goliaths
a=Nashville p=Nelson Current y=2006 r=20071130
The author uses the examples of his self produced music and home brewed beer to launch a discussion of how blogs also enable individuals in the face of media incumbents. On balance he considers this to be a good change, but can also empower terrorists. Coined the expression "horizontal knowledge" for loosely exchanged communication between decentralized participants.
Chapter 0: introduction: do it yourself
xii the triumph of personal technology over mass tech knowledge he is a trend that will continue to strengthen
chapter 1: the change
3 improvements in organization, communication, and machinery meant that we could do things on a large scale more efficiently (i.e., Adam Smith)
chapter 2: small is the new big
21 the trick to the 21st century business will be how to make money from people doing what they want to do
chapter 3: the comfy chair revolution
chapter 4: making beautiful music, together
chapter 5: a pack, not a herd
68 we need a counterterrorism program that "harnesses the energy and innovation of good-guy hackers."
Chapter 6: from media to we-dia
chapter 6.5: Interlude: live blogging
chapter 7: horizontal knowledge
121 Horizontal knowledge is communication among individuals, who may or may not know each other, but who are loosely coordinated by their involvement with something, or someone, of mutual interest. Hence extremely powerful, because it makes people much smarter.
tiny bubbles
inside, outside, and upside down
big brother versus the convoy
the inside-out panopticon
chapter 8: how the game is played
chapter 9: empowering the really little guys
chapter 10: live long -- and prosper
chapter 11: space: it's not just for governments anymore
chapter 12: the approaching singularity
chapter 13: the future
j=Journal of the Hyperlinked Organization m=November 19 y=2007 r=20071210
A response to Gragton's "book nostalgia". Responds that no Infotopian would argue that cross-referencing began with the invention of the digital hyperlink, and that people were sniffing letters and would hardly be harmed by digital access. Also, Grafton didn't note how problematic copyright is into the accessibility of orphan material or appreciate the collective power of readers. Furthermore, "the entire publishing ecosystem will be radically disrupted" once electronic book readers become popular, and how we write, read, and shape knowledge is bound to change. We will need a new form of a town library not based on break but digital annotation, underlining, and savvy librarians.
j=The New Yorker m=November 5 y=2007 r=20071210
The author is a historian of scholarship and provides a brief review of information management through time (hyperlinks existed in the form of cross-references) and an argument that an unsolved problem is a lack of integration between archives and the continuing value of non-digital characteristics (e.g. smell and bindings)
url = http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2007/11/05/071105fa_fact_grafton?printable=true
3 Alexandria was the first to shelve books alphabetically
3 Eusebius "canon tables" enabled readers to find parallel passages in the four Gospels
4 libraries' electronic publishing programs have begun to take on tasks such as distributing doctoral dissertations and reproducing local document collections that previously belonged to the University press
4 Jeremias Drexel "Goldmine" equated scholarship with digging for gold and taught students how to condense and arrange contents of literature by headaches
4 Isaac Casaubon a 16th century legal scholar at a rotating barber's chair and movable books stand that allowed him to keep many open books in view
4 Thomas Harrison invented a cabinet called the Ark of Studies that permitted readers to summarize and excerpt books and arrange notes by subject one metal hooks like an index card
5 Eugene Power's STC project distributed 26,000 early English books on microfilm
6 when using Google Book Search one needs to keep in mind that certain transcription errors in one's searches such as "u" to "n"; searching for "qnalitas" will yield results
8 Duguid's story of watching a fellow scholar sniff old letters for event occurred, which was thought to disinfect them from cholera at the time
a=Chicago p=The University Of Chicago Press y=2007 r=20080118
The president of the Bibliothè que Nationale de France criticizes the Google Library Project for fear that it will be too Anglo-centric, commercial, hegemonic, and will continue to favor preferential attachment ("gondola end")
chapter 0: introduction
5 In spite of what the nineteenth-century publishers sometimes imagined, there can be no universal library, only specific ways of looking at what is universal. Choices are always made, and must be made.
6 the pervading intellectual climate and profit motive will partly determine those choices
8 there is an asymmetry in the amount of material that is translated to and from English: translations account for less than 3% of published works in United States
11 searching for a famous English authors (Victor Hugo, Dante, Cervantes, Goethe) only English-language publications were offered
12 searching the Spanish Google book search for Cervantes yields five French works, three English works, and only in ninth and final position was there a collection from Don Quixote in the author's own language
15 the author calls for a european effort and budgetary plan to create a sustainable long-term digitization effort
chapter 1: remarkable progress
21 with the press, radio, television, etc. each new technology prompted "harbingers of doom were blind to the diversity of social practices and cultural behaviors"
chapter 2: at the mercy of the market
25 Patrick Le Lay's comment that France's CEO of TF1, the first commercial television station, goal was to sell Coca-Cola is an exemplar of the problems with the market
the “invisible hand”
26 the author was amused to hear that one of the executives at Google was named Adam Smith
26-27 America's government is happy to protect farmers and Boeing when it suits it, to fund militarism, research, the Internet, Stanford research, none of which our market
film and audiovisuals
29 a system of quotas for the web would be impossible, but the positive support of multicultural content could be furthered
overwhelming advertising
30-31 american advantages: Google Ad Words are auctioned, meaning "the richest companies have the best chance of getting even richer; American companies can sell at long distances; the "most elementary, the least disturbing, and most commonplace products" will do the best
32 in July 1982 Jack Lang pass along which limited the discounts of books to 5% so as to protect high quality bookstores from chains and remainder selling
32 despite Google's hope that users can distinguish between results and advertising, a Pew Internet study found that 62% of Internet users fail to make the distinction
33 while it seems gratuitously generous for Google to undertake this effort, libraries -- because of their mission to disseminate culture -- are poorly served. The private sector reaps profits at their benefit.
33 Make no mistake: without such determination, not only will the common interest be threatened, but we will also see the global scales, and this realm as in others, tip toward the hyperpower of the dominant civilization.
chapter 3: hyperpower
40 Francis Fukuyama declaration about the end of history was absurd
41 American apologists will often say they are the daughter of Europe, but they're also a distinct culture that is not the same as Europe's
43 a simplified form of English has emerged as a lingua franca just as water downed Greek did in the Mediterranean
chapter 4: the difficulties of a response
48 the author seemingly faults Google for censoring materials in France and German, but they are respecting European laws and culture
cooperatives: strengths and limitations
public money
image mode, text mode, metadata
chapter 5: one european search engine––or several?
chapter 6: organizing knowledge
71 a brief return to gutenberg's invention is enlightening. the printing press has not only been a powerful disseminator of knowledge; it also gave rise to the table of contents and the index, major improvements on earlier books
78 which should be the parameters of selection
chapter 7: a cultural project, an industrial project
Chapter 8: conclusion: a broader perspective
85 in the author's original French, he used the word "de'fie" which is often translated into English as defy, but should be understood as challenge
86 It would be both excessive and counterproductive to talk to a crusade or a culture war.
j=GNUisance m=February 15 y=2005 r=20070915 19:16 UTC kw=criticism
ES: Are you a Communist?
RS: No. [testifying] I am not now, nor have I ever been... [Laughter]
RS: No this American computing. This is about freedom. That's why we use so many quotes from the founders of our country.
MB: But how would you respond to someone who say, "That's a, that's a very socialist viewpoint, that we all have this software, that we share it together..."
RS: No, it's not.
MB: "We give it to each other, to each according to his needs..."
RS: Yes, but it's not socialist or Communist because those have to do with centralized ownership of things. We're not talking about centralized anything. It's about individual freedom.
We have a paradoxical situation where one particular area of business, it's not business in general, it's one line of business, uses a particular business practice that's based on subjugating the public, based on dividing and conquering. Well, when there's a business practice that conflicts with an important value like freedom and community, prohibit it.
j=Citizendium Blog m=September 21 y=2007 r=20070921 20:06 UTC kw=criticism
But it was never vandalism, per se, that led thoughtful critics to say that Wikipedia has a credibility, or reliability, problem.
We (on Wikipedia) don't each try to "own" the additions we make to Wikipedia. We are working together on statements of what is known (what constitutes free human knowledge) about various subjects. Each of us individually benefits from this arrangement. It is difficult to write the perfect article single-handedly, but it becomes easier when working together. Hence the saying "Many hands makes light work."
We assume that the world is full of reasonable people and that collectively they can arrive eventually at a reasonable conclusion, despite the worst efforts of a very few wreckers. It's something akin to optimism.
j=10 Zen Monkeys m=October 05 y=2007 r=20071008 19:43 UTC kw=criticism
"Writing as a special talent became obsolete in the 19th century. The bottleneck was publishing."
I've asked ten professional writers, including Mr. Shirky, to assess the net's impact on writers. Here are their answers to the question...
or=wikien-l m=November 10 y=2007 r=20071110 kw=criticism
You can leave it as whatever you like, I have no regrets about being mightily pissed off with Jon Awbrey's disruption (or Barber's or Bagley's) and having absolutely no patience whatsoever with anybody expressing support for banned abusers. Time for people to decide where their loyalties lie. Mine lie with Wikipedia, not with banned abusers of Wikipedia.
or=wikien-l m=November 10 y=2007 r=20071110 kw=criticism
I am comfortable with the idea of informed critique with the intent of improving Wikipedia. I took part in the failed experiment that was WikiAbuse. WR is not currently doing critique wit the intent of improving Wikipedia, what WR is doing, as we saw in the Alkivar arbitration, is manipulating us in order to undermine us to give an advantage to several individuals who we banned as being completely incapable of following our core policies.
j=The Times Online m=January 14 y=2008 r=20080122 15:39 UTC kw=criticism
In her inaugural lecture at the University of Brighton, Tara Brabazon will urge teachers at all levels of the education system to equip students with the skills they need to interpret and sift through information gleaned from the internet.
“I call this type of education ‘the University of Google’.
“Google offers easy answers to difficult questions. But students do not know how to tell if they come from serious, refereed work or are merely composed of shallow ideas, superficial surfing and fleeting commitments.
“Google is filling, but it does not necessarily offer nutritional content,” she said.
“We need to teach our students the interpretative skills first before we teach them the technological skills. Students must be trained to be dynamic and critical thinkers rather than drifting to the first site returned through Google,” she said.
Her own students are banned from using Wikipedia or Google as research tools in their first year of study, but instead are provided with 200 extracts from peer-reviewed printed texts at the beginning of the year, supplemented by printed extracts from eight to nine texts for individual pieces of work.
“I want students to experience the pages and the print as much as the digitisation and the pixels - both are fine but I want students to have both – not one or the other, not a cheap solution,” she said.
j=The Times Online m=January 16 y=2008 r=20080122 15:38 UTC kw=criticism
Reponse to Tara Brabazon
I fear the professor is blaming the messenger rather than the message. It is not the uneven quality of facts found on the internet that is to blame for uninquiring minds, it is the way they have been taught to think - and the way their written work is marked.
I doubt if there is any difference between the undergraduates of my generation, who crammed for exams by creaming off selected quotes from recommended texts and then learning them by rote, and those of today who download convenient passages from Wikipedia. The difference lies in the use they make of the material. If they are encouraged to believe that predigested information is an end in itself, and if they are then given high marks for the result, they will simply conclude that that is the outcome that society requires of them.
Academics like Professor Brabazon reveal a Ludlow-like snobbery towards Wikipedia that is becoming ever harder to justify as the site itself improves. A year ago, the Encyclopaedia Britannica was outraged when the magazine Nature carried out a comparison between it and Wikipedia, and concluded that the service offered by the two were more or less on a par (Britannica had 2.9 minor errors per article, Wikipedia had 3.9).
or=Wikimedia-l m=October 15 y=2005 r=20051015 kw=deployment
The project distributes information to universities in developing countries, by filling large hard drives with free or donated content and delivering them. The dumps have been produced to their specifications, but I thought they might be useful to other people as well.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=deployment
The goal of this Wikipedia Version 1.0 Editorial Team is to collaborate and identify a set of articles that would be suitable for release in print, CD and DVD, based on a 2003 proposal by Jimbo Wales. This may involve improving or maintaining selected articles. Our work will not affect the existing wiki process for creating and editing articles. We are aiming to begin with a set of quality articles on key subjects (core topics) and to build a full encyclopedia from this base.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=deployment
Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team, for assessing how close we are to a distribution quality article on a particular topic. The system is based on a letter scheme which reflects principally how complete the article is, though the content & language quality are also factors. Once an article reaches the A-Class, it is considered "complete", although obviously edits will continue to be made.
j=Yahoo! News m=October 31 y=2005 r=20051101 kw=deployment
Wales said new software would be deployed from the end of the year that would allow changes to very active pages which might be prone to vandalism to appear on the site with a time delay, so members of the community could review them.
Enthusiasts had also been discussing whether to create "stable" versions of certain pages that would stand as the most recent reliable entry on a given topic. These would be available behind the latest contributed version and would also be updated as necessary, Wales said.
or=wikien-l m=August 30 y=2006 r=20060830 kw=deployment
The following is, I understand, technically accurate, based on text from Amgine, Phillipp Birkin (de:wp), Jimbo and Mathias Schindler (I think), and comcom discussions (press relations being part of that job). Corrections welcomed - you have about five minutes.
j=WSJ.com m=September 12 y=2006 r=20060912 11:59 UTC kw=deployment
A "debate" between Jimmy Wales and Dale Hoiberg (editor-in-chief of Britannica)
Dale Hoiberg responds: ... But there is little evidence to suggest that simply having a lot of people freely editing encyclopedia articles produces more balanced coverage. On the contrary, it opens the gates to propaganda and seesaw fights between writers with different axes to grind....Britannica draws from a community, just as Wikipedia does. Ours consists of more than 4,000 scholars and experts around the world who serve as our contributors and advisers
Mr. Wales: Artificially excluding good people from the process is not the best way to gather accurate knowledge. Britannica has acknowledged the value of having multiple contributors, although of course because they are proprietary rather than freely licensed they would have a very hard time attracting the kind of talent that we have.
The main thrust of our evolution has been to become more open, because we have found time and time again that increased openness, increased dialog and debate, leads to higher quality. I think it is a misunderstanding to think of "openness" as antithetical to quality. "Openness" is going to be necessary in order to reach the highest levels of quality.
Mr. Hoiberg: I can only assume Mr. Wales is being ironic when he says Britannica would have a hard time attracting the kind of talent that Wikipedia has. Britannica has published more than a hundred Nobel Prize winners and thousands of other well-known experts and scholars. Contrary to Wikipedia, Britannica's contributor base is transparent and not anonymous.
The difference is that comments and suggestions are reviewed and checked by qualified editors before they're posted.
Mr. Wales: And yet, as of today, Britannica's article about Britannica claims to be the largest English language encyclopedia, while the article about Wikipedia acknowledges our size, which is of course many times the size of Britannica.
The point I am making here is not at all ironic. Britannica's contributors, while sometimes distinguished, are relatively few in number as compared to the number of high quality people that Wikipedia is able to rely upon.
Mr. Hoiberg: I must point out that Mr. Wales's inclusion of two links in his question to me, one to Wikipedia itself, is sneaky. I have had neither the time nor space to respond to them properly in this format. I could corral any number of links to articles alleging errors in Wikipedia and weave them into my posts, but it seems to me that our time and space are better spent here on issues of substance.
Mr. Wales: Sneaky? I beg to differ. On the Internet it is possible and desirable to enhance the understanding of the reader by linking directly to resources to enhance and further understanding.
You wrote: "I have had neither the time nor space to respond to them properly in this format. I could corral any number of links to articles alleging errors in Wikipedia and weave them into my posts, but it seems to me that our time and space are better spent here on issues of substance."
No problem! Wikipedia to the rescue with a fine article15 on the topic.
j=Proceedings of the 2006 International Symposium on Wikis (WikiSym '06) y=2006 kw=deployment
An interview with three prominent Wikipedians on the topics of the purpose and goal, Rowlands, quality, growth, and research of Wikipedia
4 EB: ... In the German Wikipedia, there is increasingly a distinction between 'normal' authors and 'high-end' authors who are explicitly trying to get their articles 'featured'.
5 AB ... Everyone can vote on whether that person should be an administrator. 80% support means they will be, less than 75% means they won't, and 75-80 is at the bureaucrat's discretion.
7 KN: ... KN: There are a couple of challenges. The biggest one is to keep the "anyone can edit" model, as Angela just said. Most other challenges are tackled by local Wikipedias on a day by day basis. Such other challenges include: Legal threats, ... Keeping integrity as a project. ... Lack of involvement. ... Credibility
or=Citizendium m=September 15 y=2006 kw=deployment r=20071220
An outline and a fast so for his new encyclopedic project. The author asks us to consider what tens of millions of intellectuals could do; clarifies some myths one why Nupedia failed; identifies serious problems with Wikipedia; and makes his proposals for authors, editors, subjects, etc. concludes with some similarities with Wikipedia and steps forward.
3 After that I twice offered Jimmy Wales a way to keep Nupedia alive. Once, I offered to find an academic sponsor--a university or foundation--for Nupedia. Another time, I offered to find the money to buy the domain name and subscriber list myself. Jimmy essentially turned down both offers. I could have saved it, and I wanted to save it, but Jimmy did not support the idea. It seems that with Wikipedia, he had found the only model that he wanted to survive. But the result was that only half of the original conception of "the finest encyclopedia in the history of humankind"--the wild-and-woolly half--was preserved.
or=wikien-l m=February 24 y=2007 r=20070224 kw=dissent
Courage cannot become foolhardiness, and agility cannot become evasiveness. That's a rare combination of qualities. Parker's agility is lacking, but it is unduly harsh to say that he was making no positive contributions. I am not so insecure in my views that I can tolerate no criticism.
or=wikien-l m=February 23 y=2007 r=20070223 kw=dissent
The problem is that we have nowhere near consensus for such a policy. A large number of editors support it, and a large number of editors oppose it. Different specific cases have gone different ways, mostly depending on who showed up to the debate that day.
or=wikien-l m=November 04 y=2005 r=20051104 kw=dialogue
Theres no "wikilawyering" here -- this is called discussion -- though I admittedly could have just shut up and not responded to Ben's questions, which seemed sincere. "Sophisticated?" Please.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070315 21:09 UTC kw=dialogue
WikiLawyering (and the related term pettifogging) is a pejorative term that refers to certain practices frowned upon by the Wikipedia community, including:
Using formal legal terms when discussing Wikipedia policy;
Abiding by the letter of a policy or guideline while violating its spirit;
Asserting that the technical interpretation of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines should override the principles they express; and
Misinterpreting policy or relying on technicalities to justify inappropriate actions.
Wikipedia policies and procedures should be interpreted in a commonsensical way to achieve the purpose of the policy, or help dispute resolution. Typically, wikilawyering raises procedural or evidentiary points in a manner analogous to formal legal proceedings, often using legal reasoning — under the false assumption that Wikipedia administrators or the Arbitration Committee are obligated to follow the same rules of procedure as a court of law. Occasionally wikilawyering may raise legitimate questions, including fairness, but often it serves to evade an issue or obstruct the crafting of a workable solution.
Although there is common agreement that these type of users are undesirable, the definition of a troll suffers some ambiguity, caused by the natural friction between freedom of speech and the wikiquette as assumed normal by others in the community. The threshold where an user develops from a normal user, still in the "getting acquainted" phase, to a real troll is not the same for everybody.
Once the voting process started, the volume and sharpness of comments and opinions exploded. An unprecedented number of votes were already issued the first day.
A remarkable phase during the voting period, started more or less halfway. Some users, apparently influenced by the events and comments, started changing their opinion and hence their vote.
Even Jimmy Wales got aware of the turmoil in nl and issued a symbolic vote. But this worked out totally contra-productive. A mini edit-war about the validity of Jimbo's vote was the result.
The procedure finally closed with 85 votes in favour of keeping the sysop and 35 against it. The sysop concerned, released himself from his function.
A human being has been publicly humiliated for some of his actions, regardless whether these actions were right or wrong.
Because of the pending procedures, the de-sysop could be forced by a minority of the users.
The community is now divided. Maybe definitely, but at least for quite a while. The totally open voting process also made clear on which side each voter is standing. Active users that remained neutral, i.e. did not vote, are relatively scarce.
Business as usual, but that appears more or less fake. Quite some active users take a wiki-break with implicit or explicit comments on their user page. The atmosphere in the Dutch equivalent of the Village Pump feels explosive. Time to heal the wounds seems the best remedy for the time being.
or=wikien-l m=September 24 y=2005 r=20050924 kw=eccentric
a bizarre threat to involve the FBI and Patriot Act in accusations of terrorism arising from a dispute over physics articles
I am starting legal action against Wiki this Monday with IRS Attorney General & Registry of Charitable Trusts in Florida to have tax exemption of Wiki removed because it is a vehicle for domestic terrorists (invoke Patriot Act). I consider Chris Hillman such a terrorist. At this point it will be up to FBI et-al to decide that. His repeated vicious smearing of me at this particular moment in time suggests he is a terrorist because of other stuff happening with me right now you are, I assume, not involved with. Rita may delay me a few days if Florida is hit hard.
j=globeandmail.com m=August 04 y=2006 r=20060807 17:41 UTC kw=eccentric
Today Mr. Pulsifer, 24, is known internationally as the world's most prolific author on the on-line encyclopedia Wikipedia, with 78,000 entries edited and 2,000 to 3,000 new articles to his name. He can't remember the exact number.
or=wikien-l m=July 26 y=2006 r=20060726 kw=eccentric
Norbert was a much appreciated wikipedian on the french wikipedia. He contributed a lot. Wikipedia is not produced by machines. But by living beings. We should value people and we should value good contributors.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060822 20:34 UTC kw=eccentric
The purpose of this list is to provide a reminder of those who have passed on and to remember the contributions these editors made to the success of Wikipedia.
Please do not add people to this list who were never an integral part of the community. People in this list should have made at least several hundred edits or be known for substantial contributions to certain articles. Do not add people unless you are certain they are deceased.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060822 20:59 UTC kw=eccentric
Sometime early in 2004, I made a dot-map (example) showing the location of my hometown: Apex, North Carolina. Then I decided, what the heck, since I've done that and have the graphics program open, why don't I make maps for every town in the county. That afternoon, I did about a third of the state and it didn't make any sense to stop there, so, like Forrest Gump, I just kept on running. Eerily enough, other people started running, too, and before long nearly all of the User:Rambot U.S. census location articles will have maps.
or=wikien-l m=January 10 y=2007 r=20070110 kw=eccentric
kind of people are attracted to editing on Wikipedia. What psychological defects lurk behind the computer screens and the keyboards. Why do I ask? Because in the last month (including right now), I've gotten in spats, edit wars, content disputes, with people who would be poster children for narcissitic personality disorder and one of several temporal lobe disorders, respectively.
or=wikien-l m=May 13 y=2007 r=20070513 kw=eccentric
A couple of days ago I got another harassing phone call from an apparently delusional person (complete with threats of lawsuit and vague threats of physical violence) over some older AfD and today, on another AfD I started, someone posted stuff like this:
j=Metro.co.uk m=December 19 y=2006 r=20070402 20:26 UTC kw=eccentric
For example, there are more than 2,400 Wikipedia users who have edited more than 4,000 pages each.
Canadian Bryan Derksen, a salesman who has edited more than 70,000 Wikipedia entries, said: 'I spend about a quarter of my spare time on the site, about two hours a day on average. It is the instant gratification of being able to fix something that's broken or unpolished.'
But researcher Dan Cosley told New Scientist: 'It's clearly like crack for some people.'
or=wikien-l m=June 25 y=2007 r=20070625 kw=eccentric
- Wikipedians value themselves on the amount "counts" they are at. - Wikipedians spend more time discussing policy than actually writing articles. - Wikipedians don't respond well to critism from outsiders. - Wikipedians have an Uber Mentor (Jimbo Wales).
We’re good at computer science and bad at people
We have certain patterns of failure and certain ways to fix those
Schwern is especially looking at mailing lists and bug reports
Mailing lists are where we mostly talk to each other
Bug reports are where we ask each other to do things, and where we start to interact with “real” users
There’s no existing clearinghouse for this information
Schwern completely missed GeekEtiquette! So what other resources are out there? The conversation is open.
Ramsey created the most active Wikipedian of them all, "rambot," a Java program that creates and maintains articles on American counties and cities.
He admits his wife is on to something when she calls him a repository of "lots of random bits of information." This is a man with a garage full of hobbies: photography, woodworking, cooking, gardening, chess, aquariums and computers. "It seems that I'm never content to stick with the same interests," he said. "But I always strive to find new ones."
Recently, Ramsey has been on a self-imposed Wiki vacation, but he often spends four to six hours a day penning or fixing Wikipedia articles. Why? "I feel strongly in the ideals that Wikipedia stands for, and that drives me to use my programming skills to be as productive as possible."
Mayer has authored or edited almost 40,000 Wikipedia articles, and he spends at least three hours daily doing so. "Most of us become jaded as we grow into adults and accept the fact that real limits exist on what we can, or even want, to know or be able to do," he said. "I am developmentally challenged in that regard."
Most of Mayer's Wikipedia work involves geology. When he's not pounding out articles or edits, he's also the CFO of the Wikimedia Foundation and a Wikipedia arbitrator. Clearly, he wants to make sure the project has a lasting impact. "Wikipedia is ... democratizing knowledge on a massive scale," he said. "This is something I am proud to be a part of and something I think is worth a great deal of my time and effort."
Ask math Ph.D. Matthews why he's so active on Wikipedia, and he's ready with a sound bite: "Wikipedia is a boot camp for polymaths," he said. "You may think you're a broad kind of person, but go to the newly created pages and you can stand under a waterfall of knowledge needing to be pulled into shape."
He calls his obsession with Wikipedia "madness," and monitors more than 3,000 articles.
Matthews' Wikipedia articles are largely math-related, including several on a particular favorite subject, the game Go, about which he's written books. But Wikipedia gives him a never-ending palette of new things to learn and eyeballs for his own knowledge.
"(I'll) tell you how you know you're a Wikipedian," he said. "You read any nonfiction book from the index end first. (And you think), 'I wonder if our coverage of this is complete.'"
According to Wikipedia's lists of most active editors, Greenstein made 1,809 edits during the past month. But he thinks that the timing is off and that those numbers refer to the work he did in December. "I suppose knowing that the 1,800 number was wrong says more about me than the fact that I edited 1,800 during some 30-day period."
Greenstein's passion in the real world is the same as it is on Wikipedia: fixing things. Greenstein is as likely to put misplaced books back in order in a bookstore as he is to correct a Wikipedia article. "I can't understand why people would take a book off the shelf to see if they like it, and then put it back in the wrong place," he said.
Greenstein has covered a wide variety of topics. His favorites are primates and cephalopods, and recently, New York City subways. He considers it his mandate to be as good a Wikipedia citizen as he can, especially as the project has grown up. "I care a great deal about ... Wikipedia," Greenstein said. "The concept of 'freedom to do as we please' has finally begun its maturation to 'responsible to do what we need.'"
j=Guardian Unlimited m=October 05 y=2007 r=20071005 14:57 UTC kw=eccentric
Six bureaucrats working for the agriculture ministry have been verbally reprimanded after a cyber-investigation by their bosses revealed that, rather than attending to beef quotas and rice prices, they were making hundreds of tweaks to entries on manga comics.
m=March y=2005 r=20050324
I am an historian specializing in international political economy, which allowed me to work on a diverse range of time and place on this site....
Over the past couple of years, I was using a pseudonymous account, and the name I was using in my Wikipedia email account was not my own. Given Wikipedia's sketchy reputation in some circles, I wanted to avoid any possible negative consequences in the "real world"; and I did not want the less-than-friendly environment on Wikipedia to come back to haunt me off-line. Unfortunately, when the community knows you as 'just a number,' you don't tend to be treated so well.
I will no longer contribute to Wikipedia. The project is no longer workable. There are no signs of Wikipedia developing an authoritative public review process.
m=September 02 y=2006 r=20060904 12:26 UTC kw=exit
With Matthew Garrett’s resignation from Debian, several people have compared it to my own “resignation” from Debian. It has got my thinking about whether I currently intend to ever end my “Sabbatical” and return as an active Debian Developer.
or=wikien-l m=October 06 y=2006 r=20061006 kw=exit
But I'm quitting. It's sad to say, I know, and even sadder that due to my reasons for quitting, I can't trust leaving a goodbye message on my user page or mailing from my normal account. But for the things I am about to say, I know that several admins and possibly those higher up in the project would ban me just for saying it. I know this message may never reach this list either, but I'm at least going to try. I'm doing it this way because someday, I might want to come back, and I'd like to be able to come back under the same username I left.
or=wikien-l m=October 06 y=2006 r=20061006 kw=exit
To be honest, I fully agree with you. There are too many editors, not just sysops, who feel they are better than the rest. There are too many sysops, then, taking the wrong decisions and not worrying about it. And there are too many people following along, taking their word for it and assuming nothing has gone wrong.
or=wikien-l m=October 24 y=2006 r=20061024 kw=exit
The first is Jimbo's rampant bad faith. He sent me a couple emails, and requested diffs for items I had question on. Since sending him the diffs, however, he has done precisely jack shit, and has not bothered to respond to my emails to him requesting a simple update on the matters at hand.
or=wikipedia-l m=October 25 y=2006 r=20061025 kw=exit
frustration with rules
I have been thinking it over and decided to face reality. I have lost all my believe in the wikimediaprojects. So much even that I am now adding content to places outside of the wikimediaprojects instead of having to deal with all the 100000000000000's of procedures and rules being implemented by people who do not even know how to write an article.
or=wikien-l m=December 12 y=2006 r=20061212 kw=exit
Big stinks about Mongo and desysopping and the stresses of patrolling 9/11 pages against conspiracy folks
The 'wiki way' has always involved the idea that if you are fed up of the wiki, you take a break. Some people make a big deal about that, which is a pity (flouncing takes some dress sense, in my experience ...)
People in standing who leave and come back should be welcomed. That's about it.
We do have an Arbitration principle that those who give up admin powers while 'under a cloud' cannot expect to resume them without confirmation.
or=wikien-l m=September 04 y=2006 r=20060904 kw=exit
I've been on wikibreak for a few months now (as opposed to the 'weeks' that I put on my talk and user pages) and that was the sniffing the outside air.
Head cleared, and all that. I'm definitely done with the project for a long time.
j=Nonbovine Ruminations m=October 04 y=2006 r=20070302 00:06 UTC kw=exit
I am even more bothered by the fact that calling these people on their lies is somehow wrong. That someone of purportedly high standing can use his standing as a pulpit to spread scurrilous falsehoods, refuse to provide evidence to support his false accusations (as presenting evidence is somehow a task too base for his great luminousness), and have his minions then shout down anyone who questions his good faith, is evidence of a great sickness that must needs be purged before it kills the community entirely. Then again, killing the community might be for the best; as I have observed many times before, the community doesn't write the encyclopedia. Losing them would be inconvenient, but a new community would form and take over. The problem is going to be in arranging the transfer of power. I don't believe that can happen from within, and the few entities with the power to effect it from without are not, in my estimation, likely to do so.
But enough about the decline and fall of Wikipedia civilization.
or=wikien-l m=April 21 y=2007 r=20070421 kw=exit
I thought you'd never ask. This is the third time I've posted the exact same sentence and the first time someone's been curious (although I have mentioned the issue itself before, including in my RfA). However, I don't want to change the subject of this thread, which is important, so responses to this comment, if any, should go into a new one.
j=ChapmanCentral m=August 22 y=2007 r=20070822 16:07 UTC kw=exit
It is stressful time sink; lacks a mechanism to control grudge-bearers; extraordinarily bad at protecting its friends; philosophical differences; like the wild west; full of advocacy; nutters and zealots; tabloidism; crap of the Internet; sometimes it really is obvious;
or=Slashdot m=October 6 y=2005 r=20051007 kw=expertise
So, if you're an expert, add a "Sources" section with references to back you up, that prove that your statements aren't just things that you believe, but are indeed the consensus of the experts in your field. "No original research" means that, in fact, Wikipedians explicitely are NOT equiped to judge whether something is an expert consensus or not. So, as long as you back your statement up with published sources (just as you'd do in an academic paper), you should be fine
j=Slashdot m=October 6th y=2005 r=20061006 kw=expertise
So, if you're an expert, add a "Sources" section with references to back you up, that prove that your statements aren't just things that you believe, but are indeed the consensus of the experts in your field. "No original research" means that, in fact, Wikipedians explicitely are NOT equiped to judge whether something is an expert consensus or not. So, as long as you back your statement up with published sources (just as you'd do in an academic paper), you should be fine
or=wikien-l m=October 08 y=2005 r=20051008 kw=expertise
retaining experts
We shouldn't give up the principle of open editing but we should make clear now from the beginning that we seek good writers and knowledgeable people, not anyone. Yes, anyone _can_ edit an article. But not anyone _should_ edit any article.
m=August 15 y=2006 r=20060815 13:03 UTC kw=expertise
Expertise (i.e., being a “good counsellor” about a topic) is a function of experience, education, and thought.
j=Ragesoss 2.02 m=August 29 y=2006 r=20060830 12:41 UTC kw=expertise
When Wikipedia works (from an expert knowledge perspective), it works because editors writing (and citing) from the experts' corner are able to create a strong enough consensus that they are no longer fighting against the mob to retain the quality information in an article. Instead of thinking of Wikipedia in terms of personal epistemology--how do I know what I know, and how can I infuse the steps to truth into this article?--we should think of it in terms of cultural epistemology--what do most people think about this topic, where does that information come from, and what should this article say to bring them from where they are to where they ought to be?
j=Many-to-Many m=September 18 y=2006 r=20060918 18:06 UTC kw=expertise
A critique of Sanger's Citizendium manifesto and its conceptualization of expertise which the author characterizes as deference to people rather than contribution.
Sanger’s published opinions seem based on three beliefs:
1. Experts are a special category of people, who can be readily recognized within their domains of expertise.
2. A process of open creation in which experts are deferred to as of right will be superior to one in which they are given no special treatment.
3. Once experts are identified, that deference will mainly be a product of moral suasion, and the only place authority will need to intrude are edge cases.
All three beliefs are false.
responses
j=Many-to-Many m=September 22 y=2006 r=20060922 21:13 UTC kw=expertise
Plenty of people complain of Wikipedia’s alleged “anti-expert bias”. I’ve yet to see solid evidence of it. Unless “expert-neutral” is conflated to mean “anti-expert.” Wikipedia is expert-neutral - experts don’t get a free ride. Which is annoying when you know something but are required to show your working, but is giving us a much better-referenced work.
One thing the claims of “anti-expert bias” fail to explain is: there’s lots of experts who do edit Wikipedia. If Wikipedia is so very hostile to experts, you need to explain their presence.
j=Many-to-Many m=September 22 y=2006 r=20060922 21:13 UTC kw=expertise
I’ve been studying the so-called “expert problem” on Wikipedia—and I’m becoming more and more convinced that it isn’t and expert problem per se; it is a jackass problem. As in some Wikipedians are utter jackasses—in this context, “jackass” is an umbrella category for a wide variety of problem behaviors which are contrary to Wikipedia policy—POV pushing, advocacy of dubious theories, vandalism, abusive behavior, etc. Wikipedia policy is reasonably good at dealing with vandalism, abusive behavior and incivility (too good, some think, as WP:NPA occasionally results in good editors getting blocked for wielding the occasional cluestick ‘gainst idiots who sorely need it). It isn’t currently good at dealing with POV-pushers and crackpots whose edits are civil but unscholarly, and who repeatedly insert dubious material into the encyclopedia. Recent policy proposals are designed to address this.
Many experts who have left, or otherwise have expressed dissatisfaction with Wikipedia, fall into two categories: Those who have had repeated bad experiences dealing with jackassses, and are frustrated by Wikipedia’s inability to restrain said jackasses; and those who themselves are jackasses. Wikipedia has seen several recent incidents, including one this month, where notable scientists have joined the project and engaged in patterns of edits which demonstrated utter contempt for other editors of the encyclopedia (many of whom were also PhD-holding scientists, though lesser known), attempted to “own” pages, attempted to portray conjecture or unpublished research as fact, or have exaggerated the importance or quality of their own work. When challenged, said editors have engaged in (predictable) tirades accusing the encyclopedia of anti-intellectualism and anti-expert bias—charges we’ve all heard before.
The former sort of expert the project should try to keep. The latter, I think the project is probably better off without; and I suspect they would wear out their welcomes quickly on Citizendium as well.
or=wikien-l m=September 17 y=2006 r=20060917 kw=expertise
If I had to guess, one response would be: the opportunity for a genuine expert to work hand in hand with other genuine experts, without the social difficulty of having to interact with the general public, some of whom are quite noticeably stupid and annoying.
or=wikien-l m=January 17 y=2007 r=20070117 kw=expertise
I'm a 40 (almost) year old black woman who dropped out of high school and never finished college. I'm also fundamentally opposed to "experts" running anything I have to do with. I can read, I can write, and I can learn. That's all I need and all I will ever need.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20061022 1:20 UTC kw=faith kw=faith
"To me the key thing is getting it right. And if a person's really smart and they're doing fantastic work, I don't care if they're a high school kid or a Harvard professor; it's the work that matters."
"Experts can help write specifics in a nuanced way,"
j=Citizendium Blog m=April 30 y=2007 r=20070430 11:38 UTC kw=expertise
Nick, this is a Very Big Misunderstanding. When I speak of “enlightenment,” I mean precisely the sort of thing you mean when you emphasize accuracy. I mean that people will have fantastic boatloads reliable, vetted information, more than they ever have had easy access to in the past — and all for free, too. That is something that until recently was very hard to come by in some parts of the world, and in some households and schools.
j=RageRoss m=June 29 y=2007 kw=expertise r=20070629
Labels the Wikipedia is wisdom of crowds mean as a strawman, and applauds Finkelstein for prompting the question of whether free content necessarily threatens the livelihood of professional and expert knowledge producers. The author argues that for reference works, yes, there is a threat, and even, sadly, probably for print journalism (but this also might be due to market forces), but not in the case of original research.
or=wikien-l m=January 16 y=2006 r=20060116 kw=fork
webcomics fork
(And I understand a Wired News reporter is sniffing around the webcomics debacle. Fantastic. Perhaps if it becomes a *public* embarrassment something might actually get done about the AFD problem.)
or=wikien-l m=May 16 y=2006 r=20060516 kw=fork
I would prefer a term like "ideological factions" to "division". Division is natural and happens all the time when people disagree. Even permanent groups devoted to particular topics are something we want to promote and develop further. It's the formation of permanent _ideological_ factions which tends to hurt Wikipedia, and these are again distinct from user groups devoted to particular topics.
or=wikien-l m=September 18 y=2006 r=20060918 kw=faith
Well, ironically perhaps, despite this inappropriate and irrelevant political rant, and the very POV title this thread started with, stvrtg actually raises a legitimate _editorial_ issue which applies _without regard to political position_.
or=wikien-l m=October 09 y=2006 r=20061009 kw=faith
I think that a significant amount of the confusion here has to do with it being a little unclear whether this was intended as a WP:OFFICE act. It was done under Danny's normal account, with no reference to WP:OFFICE, so I think it is safe to assume this was Danny acting in his capacity and a long standing and widely respected editor exercising editorial judgment in a manner consistent with our longstanding policies of being bold.
> However, I would expect that our long term participants could stand > together, .. that they could see the clearly good intentions of each > other, and not allow petty difference of opinion get in the way of > friendship, respect, and our over arching goals (which I think we > *all* agree does not include Wikipedia being turned into a free > advertising forum).
or=wikien-l m=October 11 y=2005 r=20051011 kw=faith
Both of them have expressed a strong wish to produce work for Wikipedia. Both of them produce articles that appear weird to non-autists. In my opinion, neither represents a threat to Wikipedia commensurate to the treatment they have received.
or=wikien-l m=November 17 y=2005 r=20051117 kw=faith
You have my deepest sympathies re losing your baby. My wife and I lost our first child - she would have been 12 next week, and I have been thinking often about here this past week since we were able to go back to where she is buried for a visit (we live in a different state now about 1800 miles away), and then I came across your note. Although we now have 4 living children, I sometimes feel the loss acutely, but I have hope for the future as I am sure you do also. I am sure you have a great support group that helped you through it all; feel free to drop me a line if you ever need to talk. I offer because sometimes people just don't understand that months/years later you may just need to rehash stuff again. I also wanted to thank you for your dedicated service and leadership on the wikipedia - especially considering the totality of the circumstances you describe above. Jim
or=wikien-l m=July 14 y=2006 r=20060714 kw=faith
This woman (please do not name her in the email archives, eh?) had a policeman come to her home for a noise complaint. She thought he was very attractive. So, a few weeks later, she called 911 to inquire about him, to ask for his name. She indicated in the phone call that she did not know how else to contact him, and gave her phone number and ask them to have the officer call her or drop by.
The AP, in what I must say I personally find to be a lack of journalistic ethics, chose to publish her full name and distribute the story to millions of people worldwide. Our understanding of the story is not enhanced by knowing her full name. It is just a funny little story about someone being stupid.
Fortunately, most AP stories vanish from the net pretty quickly. This one will. The Yahoo link will die in a few months. But imagine if someone were to write a Wikipedia article using precisely the (daft, if you ask me) arguments that Anthony DiPierro has been using. It is a confirmable story, we do know a number of fairly trivial facts about her, and... we might imagine... this *could* become an idiotic short lived meme among the immature segment of the under-17 crowd on the Internet, as did Brian Peppers.
Should we therefore have an article? Let's assume that we can verify the story easily enough. (Maybe one newspaper keeps its archives online for free... maybe a dozen blogs pick up the story.)
I would vote "delete, nn - human dignity". A full explanation would be: For goodness sake, leave the poor woman alone.
or=wikien-l m=November 25 y=2006 r=20061125 kw=faith
The assumption of good faith in the face of evidence to the contrary proved to be the bane of Neville Chamberlain, no?
or=wikien-l m=December 18 y=2006 r=20061218 kw=faith
Violating policy is supposed to get you blocked sooner. So, ironically violations of a guideline requires people to have more good faith before giving in to their trigger finger. This smells wrong anyway, it should've been discussed.
or=wikien-l m=December 18 y=2006 r=20061218 kw=faith
I'd say it causes more problems than it solves, precisely because it's an instant "veto" to valid questions of whether someone is trying to POV push or has a conflict of interest.
or=wikien-l m=December 18 y=2006 r=20061218 kw=faith
I personally agree with Jimbo's elevation of "assume good faith" to be the single mantra which binds us together and makes Wikipedia work. Everyone *does* need to know about. You don't enforce it, you don't beat people over the head with it, but you do make sure people are aware of its existence, and hope they follow it.
or=wikien-l m=October 08 y=2006 r=20061008 kw=faith
I am the very model of a modern Wikipedian, My knowledge of things trivial is way above the median, I know, and care, what Kelly Clarkson's next CD might just be called, And all the insults Hilary and Lindsay to each other bawled. I'm very well acquainted, too, with memes upon the Internet, I think the dancing hamster would be excellent as a pet. About the crackpots' physics I am teeming with a lot o' news, The Time Cube has but four sides and it's not got a hypotenuse.
or=wikien-l m=January 15 y=2007 r=20070115 kw=faith
P.S. I know I'm not alone in saying that I have considered leaving Wikipedia on several occasions not because of incivility or personal attacks, but because there are people who can't and refuse to take an obvious joke. The humorless people will ruin Wikipedia before those who aren't prim, proper and civil.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070518 14:27 UTC kw=humor
While assuming good faith is a fundamental principle on Wikipedia, it does generally not help you get over your anger at someone's, in your opinion, disturbing edits. Therefore, it is much more satisfying to also assume stupidity.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070518 15:00 UTC kw=humor
Penny Arcade comic strip: "I Have The Power", in which Skeletor edits He-Man's page to say he is a jackass, Skeletor "has the power."
or=wikien-l m=May 06 y=2007 r=20070506 kw=humor
Those intelligent people should also know that you can't run sausage backwards through the grinder and have pigs come out. It's also very hard to put toothpaste back into the tube.
or=wikien-l m=April 24 y=2006 r=20060424 kw=faith
Assume good faith. It could be a mistake, it could be a poor decision, it could be a very strange emergency having to do with a suicide attempt (this case wasn't but my point is, we do sometimes get those on the wiki and have to do our best to try to be helpful), it could be...
In general, there is plenty of time to stop and ask questions.
or=wikien-l m=June 04 y=2006 r=20060604 kw=faith
This is possible. However, I am not really sure about it. As ever, when I am asked to look into cases of "admin abuse" and I choose to do so, I generally find myself astounded at how nice we are to complete maniacs, and for how long.
or=wikien-l m=September 20 y=2002 r=20020920 kw=faith
As per Jimbo's request, the user account "Throbbing Monster Cock" on the English wikipedia has been renamed to "TMC". TMC, you may need to re-login under the new name.
or=wikien-l m=September 13 y=2005 r=20050913 kw=faith
Or, both camps could assume good faith and relax a bit, each not thinking that the "other guys" are a bunch of deranged encyclopedia-haters who want to destroy everything in an orgy of deletion and/or garage band stubs. :) A lot of people are currently disagreeing over what sorts of articles merit inclusion in Wikipedia, but it's not like most of those people think Wikipedia's going to go down in flames if the "wrong" standards are picked. At least, they shouldn't. Wikipedia is more resistant than that.
or=wikien-l m=June 25 y=2006 r=20060625 kw=faith
I agree in principle that the slogan "the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit" is overly simplistic. It reminds me of the famous saying, "I would never want to belong to any club that would have someone like me for a member." It's more of a technical definition than one of principles and goals -- and can easily be confused with the latter.
I believe that we need to highlight the mission of providing a great, free encyclopedia, along with the core principle _how_ we want to accomplish it. And the single most important principle I can think of here is not "anyone can edit". It's not even NPOV or any other policy. It's "WikiLove" -- of which our commitment to openness is only an expression. We share a love of knowledge, and we treat everyone who shares the same love with respect and goodwill. (That's the idea, at least.)
If I wanted a three word slogan for Wikipedia, it would be something like "Love in Knowledge": emphasizing the core principle of WikiLove as well as the overarching goal to collect the sum of all human knowledge. Come to think of it, "Love in Knowledge" might be a nice slogan for the Wikimedia Foundation. Or is it too kitschy?
m=September 04 y=2006 r=20060904 12:27 UTC kw=faith
Even though my frustration has sometimes failed me, the Ubuntu community never has, the encouragement, trust, confidence and help it has given to me has been invaluable, and has helped me develop into the community member I am today.
or=wikien-l m=February 06 y=2005 r=20050206 kw=faith
Of course, in place of ... you must give your reason as to why you voted to keep the article - needless to say you should do so in a cordial manner, those wishing to delete the article will latch onto anything they can as an excuse to be hostile towards anybody criticising Jewish culture.
or=wikien-l m=August 19 y=2005 r=20050823 kw=faith
The neo-Nazi site "Stormfront" operated by Don Black is preparing to launch its own "Stormfront Wikipedia" via Mediawiki
responses
or=wikien-l m=August 25 y=2005 r=20050825 kw=faith
We all agree that the goal of the project is to create an encyclopedia. A free, comprehensive, accurate encyclopedia. The best encyclopedia in the world. The reason some of us are spending all this time in debating the ban of an individual user is that we believe that to create the best encyclopedia in the world we need a community that is open, friendly, accountable, fair and helpful.
or=wikien-l m=August 23 y=2005 r=20050823 kw=faith
SlimVirgin, MattCrypto: this is why I love Wikipedians so much. I love this kind of discussion. Assume good faith, careful reasoning, a discussion which doesn't involve personal attacks of any kind, a disagreement with a positive exploration of the deeper issues.
or=wikien-l m=August 23 y=2005 r=20050823 kw=faith
I think it's time for a large Wikipedia:WikiProject Kindness Campaign membership drive push. And not only do we need more members, but we need everyone practicing the numerous WikiVirtues. Barnstars can work wonders...
or=wikien-l m=September 16 y=2005 r=20050916 kw=faith
We all know about "POV warriors." I'm fortunate or wimpy enough not to have been involved in articles with serious long-standing POV wars, but my impression is that _for the most part_ these things seem to stay under reasonable control.
or=wikien-l m=September 25 y=2005 r=20050925 kw=faith
Tension between an administrator who, as a matter of personal policy, wants to eliminate the proliferation of primary and sendary school articles and this action was contrary to a vote for deletion in which the majority responded with "keep" (the discussion thread then touches on issues of the policy, majorities and consensus, and the likelihood of lurkers and sock puppets)
Straight to the list, because he's ignored and blanked every message I've ever left on his talk page. That itself was the subject of an RfC at the time, but nobody seemed to think it was a bad idea for an arbitrator to refuse to communicate in good faith. This again, is related to his desire to delete school articles from Wikipedia with or without consensus, and I don't expect any different treatment from the last time I tried to communicate on this issue with him.
or=wikien-l m=November 14 y=2005 r=20051114 kw=faith
Of course, I am not saying that your son did these edits. Many Internet users have what an IP address that changes frequently. I do, because I use an AOL account, and frequently find myself blocked as well because of the vandalism of other AOL users. Just today, our mailing list contains complaints from other users, who found that they were blocked unjustly.
If it was not your son who made the vandalism, I apologize to him and you for the block and the comment. I also encourage him to learn more about Wikipedia, particularly about what can and cannot be posted on our website. We have had many valuable contributors his age, including one who became an administrator.
or=wikien-l m=January 17 y=2006 r=20060117 kw=faith
1. A general meme that it is extremely discourteous without absolute positive proof to speculate that the author of some non-notable biography is the subject himself or herself. Yes, it is often true, but there is zero gain to us from assuming this rather than assuming the opposite. We really don't care who wrote it: we care if it is worthy for inclusion or not.
... I haven't had any more of those horrible panic attacks since yesterday night. At least now, suicide (including painful suicide) is not highly desirable anymore. However, if I have a painless suicide method that is highly accessible, I'll still try it right away. --Bowlhover 17:17, 23 February 2006 (UTC)
or=wikien-l m=February 20 y=2006 r=20060220 kw=faith
I want people to ask slowly and thoughtfully with deep respect for others, even others with whom they disagree. As far as I can tell, there is a strong consensus that having various sorts of advocacy userboxes is problematic, especially when they are promoted in the Wikipedia namespace as if they are a normal and proper part of Wikipedia culture. The question is: how do we transition to a better state of affairs while respecting people's legitimate concerns about individuality and so on?
or=wikien-l m=May 03 y=2006 r=20060503 kw=faith
Bingo! Phil has it exactly right. The problem we are seeing, again and again, is this attitude that some poor victim of a biased rant in Wikipedia ought to not get pissed and take us up on our offer of "anyone can edit" but should rather immerse themselves in our arcane internal culture until they understand the right way to get things done.
or=wikipedia-l m=November 01 y=2001 r=20011101 kw=faith
I don't agree with the way we're doing it right now, that's for sure. If you want the password, you can just email me and I'll give it out freely. The only requirement is just that I'm aware of you in some fashion.
or=wikien-l m=October 10 y=2006 r=20061010 kw=faith
role of sarcasm
It may be bad practice, but making a rule is nonsensical. Unless smarminess and passive aggression are to be made blockable offences.
or=wikien-l m=January 26 y=2007 r=20070126 kw=faith
~ On 1/25/07, Christopher Thieme <cdthieme@gmail.com> wrote:
How does it increase uncivil conduct? Compare Wikipedia talk pages with *any* discussion forum or bulletin board.
When aggression exists, [[WP:CIVIL]] does turn it into this snide through-the-teeth aggression. "Thank you for contributing to our project (fuckhead)! We really appreciate your contributions, but we've deleted them all (because you're an idiot). Please read through all our policies before making further contributions (because you're clearly too dense to have absorbed them the first time)."
But it's still better than the unmoderated flamewars you'll find on any other site.
or=wikien-l m=February 14 y=2007 r=20070214 kw=faith
What this probably needs is a "Father Confessor" type of person that stressed out admins can go to privately when they have a problem. Such persons need to appreciate confidentiality and be non-judgemental.
or=wikien-l m=March 03 y=2007 r=20070303 kw=faith
Guy (JzG) -- <a href="http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk">http://www.chapmancentral.co.uk</a> <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:JzG</a>
or=Wikimedia m=October 25 y=2002 r=20070530 19:19 UTC kw=faith kw=faith
first usage of "assume the best" in 2002
Wikipedia has seen some bitter disputes. It's easy to get in disputes online, especially in a situation allowing as immediate a response as wikipedia, but please remember that we are all here for the same reason, and that there is a person at the other end of your conversation. Having said that, here is a short list of tips to consider when editing gets emotional:
1) Regardless of what you think of the other person or the person's edits, avoid name-calling. That is, terms like "racist" or "fascist" will simply enrage people and cause them to become defensive. You're unlikely to have a productive discussion about how to change an article with an enraged person, so don't do it. :-)
2) Avoid characterizing other people's actions. That is, don't say that someone "arrogantly" or "rudely" did anything--for the reasons listed above. Actions are open to interpretation; the person may have intended something completely different from what happened; accidents happen; misunderstandings do too.
3) If you're angry, take a breather. Let the edits stand for awhile as you consider how to say what you want to say.
4) If someone indulges in name-calling, ignore it. It may be offensive but it's not very helpful or mature. Go about your business and don't worry about it; you're not require to respond. :-)
5) Assume the best about people. Wikipedia has worked remarkably well so far based on a policy of openness. This suggests that most people who visit do want to help, and do succeed at helping. If something's not clear, don't assume the worst. Assume instead that you simply don't understand, and ask for clarification.
m=March 4 y=1861 r=20071114
I am loath to close. We are not enemies, but friends. We must not be enemies. Though passion may have strained it must not break our bonds of affection. The mystic chords of memory, stretching from every battlefield and patriot grave to every living heart and hearthstone all over this broad land, will yet swell the chorus of the Union, when again touched, as surely they will be, by the better angels of our nature.
p=wikiHow m=August 21 y=2007 r=20070821 21:46 UTC kw=faith
Interesting issues on normativeness; also doesn't say "no mean spiritedness" but from discussion I see it is a norm
Guidelines of the wikiHow Community
wikiHow is a group effort to create a great resource: the world's largest, free, how-to manual. Expect your writing to be modified, criticized, or improved by others. Changes should be viewed in the spirit of improvement and not as a criticism of your approach or capabilities. On the other hand, when editing someone else's work, be friendly, civil, and supportive. Never make personal attacks. Assume good faith in everyone's efforts. Remember that wikiHow contributors are volunteers, and sometimes are still learning their way around. So please be nice to them. When you disagree with another wikiHow community member please stay cool and talk things over civilly. Writers and editors who can't cooperate and work for the best interest of the group will be discouraged or prevented from participating.
Please don't post content that would be inappropriate for our family audience. Profanity, adult content, potty humor, hate-based speech, anti-social instructions, recreational drug-focused pieces, racist comments, and instructions for obviously damaging activities are inappropriate for WikiHow.
wikiHow exists to help people, not for product promotion. While we encourage useful articles about how to shop and buy things, writers should refrain from creating articles purely to promote one specific business without providing useful insights to our readers. While you are welcome to post an external hyperlink, the wikiHow community reserves the right to delete hyperlinks or entire articles that overstep the bounds on self-advertising.
or=wikien-l m=November 15 y=2007 r=20071115 kw=faith
I created an account circa May 2005. At the time, I was something of an immature asshole. I freely admit to having done stupid, impulsive things, although at the time they seemed mature. I remained somewhat immature for a while. I'd like to think that I've grown up somewhat from then to now, although my judgement is clouded due to the fact that I'm judging myself. So I'll probably look back at my posts to this mailing list, in forums, etc in a couple years and say to myself "Good Lord, what a douchebag!"
This disturbs me. Why? Because it is the most garishly obvious assumption of bad faith which is possible. It assumes that since someone is banned, they must have been a mortal enemy to the project since the day they joined and that their only intent is to destroy. Is it possible, perhaps, that a good editor did something bad IN ADDITION to his good editing, and was banned for that? Hell no. At least not in the world of Trolls.
And I'm not trying to destroy the Project. Honestly, I'm not.
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 24 y=2005 r=20050924 kw=frustration
With the enormous output of mails some participants produce here and the impossibility of reading all of them, important arguments can be overlooked easily. On top of that, the arguments of members who don't have the time to write a dozen or more e-mails per day are sometimes drowned out by an overly productive minority.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060830 12:43 UTC kw=frustration
An argument Sanger and McHenry, born of frustration on the Relativity article, that Wikimedia needs to do more to control cruft; its current speech is more appropriate to a "Wiki speech" type project.
I am a former active contributor who has chosen to leave the project, for reasons which I will try to explain on this page and elsewhere in my user space, which is (or soon will be) write protected to prevent the kind of vandalism to which this and many other pages have been subject in the past.
The essential problem as I see it is a failure on the part of the WikiMedia Foundation Advisory Board to recognize and respond appropriately to some fatal internal inconsistencies in what Wikipedia is and how it operates.
(What, there is no Advisory Board? Apparently not--- and I think that is rather the point! Read on.)
or=wikipedia-l m=October 25 y=2006 r=20061025 kw=frustration
I still use en.wp as a reference (sometimes), but I rarely edit it. My reason now isn't the same as the one I used to have (busy with other language wikis), but rather, simply that I find the climate to be too hostile and too toxic for me to make any real editing progress.
or=wikien-l m=September 16 y=2006 r=20060916 kw=governance
So I figured why not try it? After all, I've been here for two and a half years. I've got a pretty good idea of what we're doing here. Why not just stop worrying about what all the policy pages say today, and about what the process to list something on AfD is?
j=Me, MySelf and I m=March 11 y=2007 r=20070314 14:16 UTC kw=gender
after a long long time, I can see, that Ubuntu will be not only usable, but it's going to be the sexiest Linux ever ,)
Yeah, please "spam" my comments, and yeah, I like to be the worst case of not being political correct, but I like to see more women posting to planet.ubuntu,com.
j=philosophical geekess m=March 15 y=2007 r=20070315 16:28 UTC kw=gender
While I’ve been part of the Ubuntu community for now 18 months, (used Ubuntu for about 4 months prior). It is only recently that I’ve become involved with Ubuntu Women and even more recently AussieChix/LinuxChix - mostly because I did not see the point in integration via segregation.
Why the backflip? Because I know that I am not the only woman out there, and I know that some women have not been as fortunate as I have been. If my presence in these groups can make some women more comfortable and more likely to participate, then it is worth it.
When I put my blog on Planet Ubuntu, I was the only female in the list as far as I or anyone I spoke to could tell and as far as we know, I was the first. (corrections welcome)
j=schwuk.com m=March 29 y=2007 r=20070329 14:57 UTC kw=gender
Jump forward a good few days, and some anonymous coward – who presumably was involved in the aforementioned discussion – decided to target Caroline for swearing on her blog. Following this she has removed herself from both the planet and mailing list.
The departure of any member from a community should be reflected on. In this case I don’t blame Caroline for leaving as she was not made to feel particularly welcome recently, but I hope she will reconsider her position. The actions of this one anonymous coward however are inexcusable, and by remaining anonymous make the rest of Ubuntu-UK look bad.
j=Pleia2's blog m=August 30 y=2007 r=20070830 14:16 UTC kw=gender
The depressing bit? Many people within Ubuntu view ANY comments on feminism by ANY women within Ubuntu as a reflection of the Ubuntu Women project. Melissa’s controversial posts, Sarah’s -marketing thread about the Canonical women’s t-shirts, Vid’s suggestion that Ubuntu-Women.org should be on t-shirts and even my -marketing post about UWN “wives” comment have been put up as examples of how all the Ubuntu Women project does is complain - when in fact NONE of these are official positions coming from the Ubuntu Women Project, some of them are even denied by a majority of folks in the project. We’re just Ubuntu Members who stood up with an objection, all on our own.
or=wikien-l m=August 29 y=2007 r=20070829 kw=gender
*Misogyny is the perfect troll. * I'm not above a little *schadenfreude*; I think it's hilarious. Misogyny generates misery among a certain set of people who are basically unpleasant anyway and wastes huge amounts of their time and energy. Best of all, I break zero rules and keep all my online buddies while they make themselves despised and sometimes even endanger their careers.
or=Foundation-l m=October 09 y=2007 r=20071009 22:04 UTC kw=gender
I'm offended that the desire to have Wikimania hop around the globe (rotation) trumps the egregious history Egypt has with LGBT and other civil rights (local laws). While visitors to Egypt are certainly not at the same risk, I refuse to spend any money in a country that -- as recently as 2004 -- sentenced someone to 17 years of prison and two years of hard labor for posting a personal ad on a gay website[1]. A blogger was imprisoned in 2007 for four years for "insulting Islam and defaming the President of Egypt."[2] Jimmy Wales even attended the Amnesty conference denouncing the censorship. No legal or cultural reforms since give me confidence that the situation has improved.
j=millosh’s blog m=October 16 y=2007 r=20071016 22:07 UTC kw=gender
Delphine Ménard: 3 years in October 2007.
One could argue that a few channels turn to sexist dens once in a while, but not more or less than anything in normal life. Leave too many men together, and you’ll get sex and video games, leave too many women together and you’ll get sex and gossip.
j=millosh’s blog m=October 18 y=2007 r=20071018 22:07 UTC kw=gender
SlimVirgin: Being a woman does make you more of a target for troublemakers, and for certain types of men — largely very young men, who seem to feel threatened by assertive women, and who respond by becoming contemptuous — and then of course we have the out-and-out misogynists, of which we’ve had a few, unfortunately.
SlimVirgin: By Wikipedia trolls and stalkers off-wiki, yes. It has happened a lot. They’ve discussed my appearance, what clothes they think I wear, what kind of bras I wear, whether I fear being raped, whether I’m a whore, whether I’ve had to sleep with men in real life to get jobs.
SlimVirgin: We need a top-down decision to create a more civil community, with zero tolerance of stalking and harassment, and with much less tolerance of the dominant teenage white boy culture, which is simply driving women and older men away. This should extend not only to Wikipedia, but to the mailing lists and to the Wikipedia IRC channels. The entire culture needs to become less tolerant of adolescent male aggression. Otherwise, we’ll continue to fail to attract women, more mature men, more educated people, and people from other cultures, which means we’ll continue to fail to achieve NPOV.
or=wikien-l m=September 03 y=2005 r=20050903 kw=governance
All appeals of Arbitration Committee rulings are to be directed to Jimbo. This is made quite clear. :-) In this particular case, as can be seen from its page, Jimbo was the one who asked us to review the case in the first place in view of Skyring's highly disruptive and unhelpful behaviour.
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 25 y=2005 r=20050925 kw=governance
Hoi, When there is a vote, when this vote is considered in a meeting like it has, they should either put up or shut up. When a small group of people meets and decide on something, in essence this is just what happened: a small group of people who decided something. Nothing special in and of itself. Obviously they do not need to vote, but when they do not vote, they should not moan when their voice is not considered when the vote is evaluated. Thanks,
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 30 y=2005 r=20050930 kw=governance
At one of the wikipedias, the one in Swedish, a discussion has arisen if it would be possible to elect admins on a term of, say, one year. Admins whose actions often are questioned would then have little chance of getting re-elected, and choosing not so perfect admins would not be such a big problem as it currently is.
or=wikien-l m=October 05 y=2005 r=20051005 kw=governance
should the number of arbitrators increase, should a hierarchical system of lower courts be implemented such that arbitration can scale the size of the growing Wikipedia?
The crux of my point is that the number of active editors in Wikipedia has grown nearly 10 fold since ArbCom was created 2 years ago, while the number of Arbitrators has remained constant at 12.
or=wikien-l m=October 06 y=2005 r=20051006 kw=governance
more discussion on how to reorganize the dispute process
Yes. I have a number of people in mind who I think would make good magistrates but who I would not (yet) trust with the duties of Arbitrator. Also, magistrate is likely to be a more manageable load than Arbitrator, especially if we let people volunteer to work at controllable work load levels (i.e. let individual magistrates specify whether they are open to accept more cases or not; the ArbCom doesn't have that luxury). More people may be willing to make the commitment to be a magistrate (especially ) than the much greater commitment of an Arbitrator.
or=wikien-l m=October 13 y=2005 r=20051013 kw=governance
It's not my job to seek out and destroy any who violates written policy. If, in fact, the written policy is not being followed because the consensus of the community is to ignore the written policy, then the written policy isn't actually policy, now, is it?
or=wikien-l m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051019 kw=governance
Look, I'm happy with the board appointing trusted people to use checkuser. I don't mind if this is delegated to arbcom. But I'm not happy at all about having a RFA-style beauty contest for people to use checkuser. Nope. This isn't how we do things associated with privacy.
or=Wikimedia-l m=October 21 y=2005 r=20051021 kw=governance
Is there a promise, is the policy renegotiable?
I think talking of this as a "contract" is somewhat overdoing it - it's an important point that this was the compromise reached during a previous discussion, but unless there's a *very* strong statement promising to uphold it "forever", we generally treat all consensus policies as re-negotiable.
or=wikien-l m=October 25 y=2005 r=20051025 kw=governance
I think it's important to get some discussion started on the way the arbitrators will be chosen at the end of this year, as Jimbo Wales has recently altered the elections page [1], saying that this year there will be a new system. As he hasn't decided, it's our responsibility as Wikipedians to help pick the best arbitrators with the best possible system.
or=wikien-l m=November 28 y=2005 r=20051128 kw=governance
The ArbCom's power comes entirely from the willingness of the admins and the community in general to implement the decisions it comes up with. If we're willing to forgo the use of the formal voting software, there's nothing stopping the community from running its own ArbCom election.
or=wikien-l m=December 19 y=2005 r=20051219 kw=governance
Wikipedia is not the real world. We are not building a model community here; we're building (or trying to build) an encyclopaedia. The Arbitration Committee is not a real world court, and real world procedures do not apply. Also unlike the real world, there's nobody waiting to swoop in and see that your "rights" aren't violated.
or=wikien-l m=January 07 y=2006 r=20060107 kw=governance
I'd just like to let you know that I have proposed the structure of a Wikipedia Ombudsman, that would deal with any complaints leading from admin action and ArbCom cases. I think in recent times there has been a significant growth in the number of users who have either left the project or felt very badly treated due to administrator actions and ArbCom rulings. I'm not trying to blame either the administrator function - I'm an admin myself - or the ArbCom; however, I think an Ombudsman is necessary to deal in an effective and fair way with all of the complaints. To compound this, I think the transparency and accountability of some admin and ArbCom actions is quite unacceptable, IMO. The Ombudsman structure would seek to redress this in a neutral and fair way, to ensure more decentralisation and stability for the community (remember: alienation breeds conflict).
or=wikien-l m=January 08 y=2006 r=20060108 kw=governance
Honestly sounds like an attempt to subsume or parallel functions that already rest with Jimbo Wales. I also have serious concerns about adding yet more bureaucratic positions to Wikipedia. _______________________________________________
or=Wikimedia-l m=January 18 y=2006 r=20060118 kw=governance
Admins decide which content gets deleted and which content gets undeleted. They decide when pages are protected and when they are unprotected. While those pages are protected they decide what those pages are going to say. They decide when to block someone for violating the three revert rule and when not to block someone for violating it.
or=wikien-l m=January 21 y=2006 r=20060121 kw=governance
The absence of a rule directly forbidding your precise action does not necessarily give you free reign to do it. In this case, you are unwilling to explain why you have a picture of another user on your user page and unwilling to explain how this is not harrassment of a user you are in a dispute with, so you really haven't given the blocking admin another way of dealing with this situation.
or=wikien-l m=January 21 y=2006 r=20060121 kw=governance
You are displaying an image of User:Node_ue on your page because you know that it pisses him off. As you were told on Wikipedia, don't be disingenuous. Don't make any more bullshit claims about why you're putting it there and keeping it there. Wikipedia is not a game of rules. Rules-lawyering about 'well, you can't PROVE I mean it to be disrupting or uncivil ...' doesn't fly, because we all know you're full of it.
or=wikien-l m=March 31 y=2006 r=20060331 kw=governance
Hi all, I just came across this excellent analysis of the problems with RfA at the moment, written by Tyrenius, who had his application rejected on the basis of insufficient edits (he had 1331 at time of application, and apparently works offline a great deal, making that figure misleading), age (not sure, older than 3 months) and supposedly not doing enough "project work".
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060412 16:24 UTC kw=governance
Polls are evil. Don't vote on everything, and if you can help it, don't vote on anything.
Or, rather, polling isn't evil in itself, but when you try to distill an essay's worth of thought into a single phrase, that's the sort of oversimplified, divisive statement that happens. A bit like trying to distill an essay's worth of thought into a single "yea" or "nay".
(Although Wikipedia has a Neutral point of view policy, this article seems to have the general consensus of the Wikipedia community.)
Contents
or=wikien-l m=May 04 y=2006 r=20060504 kw=governance
I recently came across a very contentious Afd having to deal with the movement to impeach George W. Bush. The discussion was overwhelmed with vote-stacking. I caught two users doing it and temporarily blocked them, but was reverted by an admin who says it's "not in policy" that we can block for that. I've also since discovered a third person who was vote-stacking.
or=wikien-l m=May 04 y=2006 r=20060504 kw=governance
We need to recognize that each user has a right to try to influence policy in ways that they believe are beneficial to the project. Two basic tenets of this are discussing the ideas and building up groups of people who agree with you and who will help you bring about the beneficial change.
or=wikien-l m=January 13 y=2006 r=20060113 kw=governance
Voting on everything has become a policy disaster. That in particular needs to be strongly discouraged. "The community" as expressed through polls is showing itself to be on crack far too often.
m=June 09 y=2006 r=20060609 15:59 UTC kw=governance
The chief executive is responsible for the overall administration and management of WMF, including service programs, fundraising, and business operations. Areas of responsibility include assisting and working closely with the board on planning and evaluation, operational policy development and administration, personnel and fiscal management, and public relations. This is a full-time position, hired by and directly accountable to the board of directors through its elected board chair.
or=wikien-l m=May 24 y=2006 r=20060524 kw=governance
community bans
Well, it never was the ArbCom's job to have a finger in every pie. It took over from Jimbo having to rule in the toughest cases. And the process is still most suitable for ruling on apparently intractable cases which need a fairly transparent process. Having cases disposed of by other routes is intended.
m=August 08 y=2006 r=20060808 22:18 UTC kw=governance
~ wikimania2006.wikimedia.org > Wiki > Image:Wikimania2006 20060806 Wikimedia Foundation Board Panel
Q: Why is Angela leaving the board? She says it's become less collaborative. How? A: (Angela) E.g., we vote on a wiki rather than having discussions.
or=Foundation-l m=June 05 y=2006 r=20060808 kw=governance
This is a violation of Jimmy's promise to never vote against Anthere and Angela except on matters of grave importance. The September 2004 Wikimedia
Quarto states:
"To date, Tim and Michael have played a minimal part in board discussion and decisions, and there is no plan to change this. In order to ensure that the community voice is real, Jimbo has pledged, as a matter of convention, never to vote against Angela and Anthere, unless he feels that it is an issue of an absolutely fundamental change of direction for the project -- which is not likely to happen, since Angela, Anthere and Jimbo share the essential values of the community and the project. So as a practical matter, power is in the hands of the two democratically elected board members on most issues, and Jimbo defers to that."
Restated in February 2005:
"Angela and Anthere are unbelievably good as board members, and we have a casual agreement between us that if the two of them ever vote in one direction, I will defer to them, so that it does not matter how Tim and Michael vote. The only exception I would make to this is if they wanted something that I felt endangered us in some very extreme way -- but this is basically impossible because they are so good at what they do."
and in April 2005:
"The first resolution was something that we discussed at the board level but never quite came to a firm conclusion. I think that's one which we will revisit at some point in the future. The general idea was to make sure that committees not engage in excessive secrecy, which is a good idea, but at the same time, we did not want to encumber them with a lot of paranoia that they have to announce evertything all the time. Different board members had different perspectives on how to get those central points across."
or=Foundation-l m=June 05 y=2006 r=20060808 kw=governance
This is an example of why I find the questions "Who voted for it?" and "Who voted against it?" immensely troubling. In a true democratic system, the secret ballot allows people to vote their conscience, rather than voting for popularity, material reward, fear of censure, and whatnot. A commitment to openness should not be misused so cynically.
or=wikien-l m=August 31 y=2006 r=20060831 kw=governance
Admins who got deadminned for doing jawdroppingly dumb things, despite having arguably followed written process all the way. Process is important - the right amount does keep us all from killing each other - but not so important as to be an excuse for stupid.
or=wikien-l m=September 16 y=2006 r=20060916 kw=governance
My view on who should be elected is already public, but for those who don't read meta, I believe Erik is the only candidate capable of having any positive influence within the current Board. Later, when that Board is expanded and the continuous internal conflicts are resolved, I would agree that Mindspillage and Oscar may be good candidates in future. I would also trust Steve Dunlop and Juan David Ruiz in the role, but right now - Erik is what the Board and Foundation needs.
m=September 20 y=2006 r=20060920 14:06 UTC kw=governance
And so I was extremely happy to read that Aaron Swartz is running for the board. Aaron was one of the early architects of CC. But his talent is much more than technical. He is a brilliantly independent and clear thinker; takes bullshit from no one; and has a deep and reflective view about all things Net. I’m sure this is true of more than one person, but he would make an outstanding addition to the board.
or=wikien-l m=October 01 y=2006 r=20061001 kw=governance
Human judgement is flawed, imperfect and subject to bias and abuse. So some people attempt to write reliable procedures for all actions and eliminate grey areas, in the interests of fairness and efficiency. But the rules are not complete, coherent or consistent, and precedent isn't binding in any case. (Really - check [[Wikipedia:Consensus can change]]. You'd be a fool to ignore it, but it's not at all binding.)
or=wikien-l m=November 18 y=2006 r=20061118 kw=governance
Not in any way a contradiction. The wisdom of crowds happens when it happens. The Community has shown it can write an encyclopedia. The Community has shown it's really bad at dealing with many of the indirect processes involved. Just as with people, ability in one area does not confer ability in another, and I'm surprised you seem to think it does.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20061204 21:03 UTC kw=governance
To be eligible to vote, users must have been a contributor to at least one Wikimedia project for 90 days prior to August 1, 2006, as indicated by the date of the user's first edit, and must have completed at least 400 edits with the same account by August 1, 2006.
Users may not "combine" edits from different projects to reach 400: they must have 400 on a single project, and the first edit with that account must have been made not less than 90 days before August 1, 2006.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=governance
Well... let's put it this way. As far as I can tell, Anthere's becoming Board chair was much more widely promoted within the community than, say, the move on the English Wikipedia to merge a few fundamental content inclusion policies into one (WP:ATT). What one sees happening on the site often depends on what one pays attention to.
And not to continue overstating the obvious, but let's not confuse the issues of who is influential in making English Wikipedia policy and who is influential in the running of Wikipedia's parent organization. Jimbo, as ever, has special status in both arenas, in large part since he played a big role in getting them both up and running in the first place.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=governance
The change was made before a sufficient process had taken place to make the change, with the result that many good editors were unaware that such a fundamental change was about to take place. Many have reported being baffled and unhappy with the change.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=governance
Jimbo admits that his powers are ambiguous, perhaps he prefers it this way for strategic purposes?
I think the limits on my power are quite a bit unknown for a few reasons, mainly that I really don't exercise power all that much, ever, and so most questions of what I could do just simply don't come up. And passing a priori laws against me seems rather injudicious since our community institutions are all quite carefully limited for good reasons in an effort to create an atmosphere of calm loving respect.
m=March 22 y=2007 r=20070322 14:13 UTC kw=governance
Jimbo no longer exercises these and other functions exclusively or regularly, though he reserves the right to do so. At the beginning of 2004, noone knew how the ArbCom would work out, and Jimbo reserved the right of executive clemency with respect to the ArbCom's decision, and even reserved the right to dissolve the ArbCom if necessary.
Jimbo's role looks like a horrible, poorly-defined mess, but looking at this through a constitutional history perspective, it seems fairly straightforward. Jimbo once exercised many functions, which are defined essentially by use: the functions that he had, such as arbitration, were the ones he exercised. These functions are now exercised by other functionaries, governed by their own policies, although Jimbo still has a potential to exercise them. Jimbo retains what are essentially reserve powers, to be used in extraordinary circumstances, while the day to day exercise of power is governed by the equivalent of a constitution (the arbitration policy, for example). Pressure from the community will serve well enough to force constitutional conventions on Jimbo's use of authority. As long as the conventions are not breached, everything's peachy.
In summary, I'm comfortable with Jimbo's functional role not necessarily being rigidly defined, because I can appreciate the way it has diminished over time, and probably will continue to do so, and I can appreciate that not being rigidly defined can help this process. His leadership role is a function of his service, past leadership and the trust invested in him by many members of the community. Moreover, it is largely distinct from his functional capacity: Jimbo will remain a leader for as long as he continues to lead well, even while his functional role declines.
So to all the American editors clamouring for a constitution to define Jimbo's role: chill out and enjoy the Westminster System.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=governance
reserved a role that includes the power to make decrees like "this is unacceptable". What is going on? What can he and can't he do? Why does he ignore the merge of WP:V and WP:OR into WP:ATT (and I thought I was slow for missing it...), then appear and not only criticise it, but actually act on it: "As a first step, I am removing the claim on this page that is supercedes the other two, and restoring the other two to their rightful place in the pantheon of Wikipedia."
or=wikien-l m=March 22 y=2007 r=20070322 kw=governance
Outsiders often imagine that we have a much greater degree of procedure than we actually do. We have a group of friends working under "rough consensus and running code" and decision-making is highly distributed and what may appear to be lines of authority are often merely lines of respect and thoughtfulness.
In the case of "nofollow"... to the best of my knowledge, the history is that it was implemented without my knowledge or approval (which is normal and fine) in various (some? all? depending on local opinion?) languages except en.wikipedia.org. There were discussions about it, both public and private, and I expressed my own concerns about it. Out of respect for me, the implementation was delayed for a long time on English Wikipedia while I talked to Matt Cutts at google about it.
j=David Gerard Blog Archive m=May 03 y=2007 r=20070503 13:21 UTC kw=governance
Shirky notes: “Constitutions are a necessary component of large, long-lived, heterogenous groups.” I’ve long spoken of Wikipedia’s fundamental policies — neutrality, verifiability, no original research; assume good faith, no personal attacks, don’t bite the newbies — as a constitution, and said that any process that violates them must be thrown out. The catch being there’s not yet a way to enforce that.
One thing Shirky strongly points out: “The third thing you need to accept: The core group has rights that trump individual rights in some situations. This pulls against the libertarian view that’s quite common on the network, and it absolutely pulls against the one person/one vote notion. But you can see examples of how bad an idea voting is when citizenship is the same as ability to log in.” You would probably believe the outrage when I applied the phrase “one moron one vote” to Requests for Adminship, the prime example on English Wikipedia at present of a group that’s being its own worst enemy. Worse than Articles for Deletion. (The reason people form into insular groups that defend one moron one vote is that the groups then attain local “core” status and feel they can get some work done. This is why new committees keep popping up.) The trouble is then squaring this with not being exclusionary toward the newbies.
Some consider cabalism on English Wikipedia the source of all problems. Unfortunately, with 4330 frequent editors and 43,000 occasional editors each month, no-one is going to know everyone. So people will cluster with those they do know just to get anything done.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070525 18:10 UTC kw=governance kw=governance
The Wikimedia Foundation announced on Monday that it has hired Brad Patrick as general counsel and interim executive director. The announcement followed a resolution earlier this month authorizing the employment of a full time CEO and legal counsel for the Foundation, which operates Wikipedia and its sister projects.
m=June 6 y=2006 r=20070525 18:17 UTC kw=governance
The ability to enter into a legal contract to indemnify a third party should be, and arguably IS, reserved solely for the SPI Board of Directors. I don't recall even a heads-up to the SPI board. Nor do I recall any SPI resolution, past or present, delegating the ability to enter into such an agreement to any Debian developer, archive maintainer or otherwise.
j=Spontaneous Monotony m=April 17 y=2007 r=20070417 15:28 UTC kw=governance
At some point in the intervening three years2, vocal elements within the Wikipedia community - both ordinary users and the hierarchy - have decided that they don’t want to write an encyclopedia any more. What they really want to do is spend all their time promoting or shouting down each other’s RFAs, deleting or saving each other’s articles, arguing about the said behaviours, arguing about arguments, and arguing about arguments about a policy controlling arguments. Still following me?
At the centre of this is the ‘instruction creep’ which has become overwhelming under the banner of ‘helping Wikipedia cope with a larger userbase’. Before, a Vote for Deletion3 was a simple matter - was the article good or bad. People might have differing opinions as to when a poor quality article (or a very short one) became so bad as to warrant deletion, but on the whole everyone agreed that bad articles should be deleted, and good or mediocre articles (or those which had a reasonable chance of being improved to such a state) should be kept.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070625 14:19 UTC kw=governance kw=governance
Danny's candidate Q&A Includes dispute between Danny and Anthere regarding a "breach of fiduciary responsability", perhaps Anthere expensing child care?
j=Make love, not traffic m=July 24 y=2007 r=20070725 15:24 UTC kw=governance
Comments on the election process, including mass emailings, thresholds for voting, translations and recommendation for more bottom up support
j=Nonbovine Ruminations m=September 5 y=2007 r=20071001 21:51 UTC kw=governance
What made me think about this was a comment Greg Maxwell made to me about featured picture voting on Commons. Maxwell proposed to use pairwise voting to, over time, identify the "best" images on Commons. Basically, editors would be presented with two random images and asked to pick one or the other as the "better image". This method will, over time, identify the best images (assuming editors don't lie) and is virtually immune to canvassing and other vote manipulation methods because voters do not get to choose the images; they are chosen randomly.
This sort of approach won't work for RfA or AfD, but I thought of a way to at least reduce canvassing effects: randomly selected juries. Basically, whenever an "question" arises ("Should $EDITOR be made an administrator?", "Should $ARTICLE be deleted?", etc.) a discussion page is created as currently, and anybody who wants to can post comments on that page. However, there is no voting.
Important Board discussion in ParisTo date, Tim and Michael have played a minimal part in board discussion and decisions, and there is no plan to change this. In order to ensure that the community voice is real, Jimbo has pledged, as a matter of convention, never to vote against Angela and Anthere, unless he feels that it is an issue of an absolutely fundamental change of direction for the project -- which is not likely to happen, since Angela, Anthere and Jimbo share the essential values of the community and the project. So as a practical matter, power is in the hands of the two democratically elected board members on most issues, and Jimbo defers to that.
Stewards are not allowed to make decisions, such as 'this user should (or should not) be promoted'. Their task is to implement valid community decisions. If there are any doubts on the election, the steward will not act or take decisions before the uncertainty is eliminated. The only exceptions are in emergency cases where no local user with that right is available, or for projects that demonstrably have no community.
Stewards should always be neutral. They can vote in elections, but when executing the result of the election the steward has to act according to the result, even if they disagree.
or=wikien-l m=November 14 y=2007 r=20071114 kw=governance
How to let an issue lie when its been resolved
What interests me, though, is the question of how we can prevent this. I've been fighting with the same people over issues with reliable sourcing for well over a year, for instance, and yet those fights still continue despite, seemingly, a substantial shift in opinion away from the former hardline positions (things that included overbroad statements about blogs "never" being reliable sources).
j=Citizendium Blog m=December 9 y=2007 r=20071210 15:33 UTC kw=governance
Multiple sources are now saying that Wikipedia is more “on the ropes” than ever, burdened by multiple fresh scandals. Here’s a review of the sad yet fascinating situation, as I understand it.
j=The Onion m=August 20 y=2007 r=20070827 15:54 UTC kw=humor
ZURICH, SWITZERLAND—The Wikipedia entry on Dada—the World War I–era "anti-art" movement characterized by random nonsense words, bizarre photocollage, and the repurposing of pre-existing material to strange and disturbing effect—may or may not have been severely vandalized, sources said Monday.
"This is either totally messed up or completely accurate," said Reed College art history major Ted Brendon. "There's a mustache drawn on the photo of Marcel Duchamp, the font size keeps changing, and halfway through, the type starts going in a circle. Also, the majority of the actual entry is made up of Krazy Kat cartoons with abstract poetry written in the dialogue balloons."
The fact that the web page continually reverts to a "normal" state, observers say, is either evidence that ongoing vandalization is being deleted through vigilant updating, or a deliberate statement on the impermanence of superficial petit-bourgeois culture in the age of modernity.
Tony Sidaway
or=wikien-l m=December 11 y=2005 r=20051211 kw=history
Jack is his own worst enemy, but in my opinion he had a just complaint against Wikipedia because of several inaccuracies in the article, and a rather gross libel based on a misreading of a Usenet discussion. I don't know what became of that case--last I heard, Ed Poor was trying to fix it and facing stiff opposition. As with the Wollmann case, we have to keep nonsense from the less salubrious parts of Usenet from bubbling over into Wikipedia and landing us with a legacy of ill will.
WebQuest
m=May 03 y=2006 r=20060503 20:20 UTC kw=history
A WebQuest is an inquiry-oriented activity in which most or all of the information used by learners is drawn from the Web. WebQuests are designed to use learners' time well, to focus on using information rather than looking for it, and to support learners' thinking at the levels of analysis, synthesis and evaluation. The model was developed in early 1995 at San Diego State University by Bernie Dodge with Tom March, and was outlined then in Some Thoughts About WebQuests.
Admin
j=ConsortiumInfo.org m=November 02 y=2006 r=20061102 22:15 UTC kw=history
Wikipediology: a call that anthropologists from the future will find WP to be an essential resource on the past
Larry Sanger
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia
Katherine Mangu-Ward
j=Reason Magazine kw=history m=June y=2007 r=20070615
A journalistic piece on Wales that addresses his biography, some of the controversies and criticism of Wikipedia, the wisdom of crowds, and Wikia
Tim Shell
Kent Beck, Mike Beedle ,Arie van Bennekum, Alistair Cockburn, Ward Cunningham, Martin Fowler, James Grenning, Jim Highsmith, Andrew Hunt, Ron Jeffries, Jon Kern, Brian Marick, Robert C. Martin, Steve Mellor, Ken Schwaber, Jeff Sutherland, Dave Thomas
Wikipedia
Ward Cunningham
WC: I love it. It's just brilliant. I think Wikipedia is valuable to people who don't see themselves an Author and aren't interested in the meta-conversation. I don't think Wikipedia would be possible without it.
Now the question is, was my site a wiki without it?
WC: Absolutely. A certain amount of credit drifts my way from Wikipedia. I'm always quick to remind people that my wiki is not Wikipedia, and that there's a lot of innovation there. I'm proud of what the Wikipedia community has done, I think it's totally awesome.
Here's what I think a wiki is: content before community. Low latency to correction. The workflow of submission starts with publication - publish and then edit. Trivial creation of new pages, to let them grow to the right size. And a community provided by RecentChanges -- the ability to see what other editors are doing, encouraging visitors to go from readers to authors to editors.
One thing I read when I was doing wiki was a book by Edwin Schlossberg, a participatory museum exhibit designer - a thin little book that talked about how the audience defines 'Quality' for a performance (something is "good" if the people paying attention agree it is). He said that as soon as you have a medium where audience members can watch each other work, you develop a sense of community good. That's clearly happening here.
WC: I actually thought of it as a glossary for new words that a community would use. The thought that a community needs a dictionary, helped inspire the first wiki. But Wikipedia's scope is so much larger than the scope of my wiki. At the time, I was aware that there were 'divisive' topics. I discouraged people from writing about them, because I thought the forum was vulnerable in that if people didn't seek consensus, they wouldn't find it.
Now when I'm boasting of the qualities of wikis, I speak of the ability of a community to establish and enforce norms in a way a computer program can't. You couldn't write down NPOV in a rule and run it as a test on submissions. The only way to make [such] a social distinction is to have a lot of people discussing examples.
m=August y=2005 bt=Keynote at Wikimania 2005 r=20070824
Beginning with much humility, Cunningham talks about the history of the wiki, HyperCard, real index cards (as boundary objects between people), object-oriented design, agile methodology, the Web, and his current thoughts on "folk memory"
some history
05 diagram of computer controlled radio
11 HyperCard metaphor is that of the index card, about the size of the early Mac screen
12 wanted to model something irregular that wouldn't fit into a database row-columns
13 make people, project, and idea cards for his company
14 title and place to write with links between
14 but didn't like the completeness requirement, what it to refer to things he hadn't created yet; create a list of things that could be searched for
15 if something wasn't found, one could hold down the button and it would create a new card (button event handler)
16 demoed it for his colleagues: people wanted to fix and correct and put in politics of the organization
17 involved with object oriented programming at the time, working with folks designing oscilloscopes; used his cards to model the modular objects
19 started writing the same information on real index cards. This had a huge impact: one could spread cards on the table, handle, and pass them around with others
20 people would point to a blank area on the table where the nonexistent (not yet defined) card would eventually go
21 "They had need for a name for something they didn't know how to say."
22 the thing represents an idea in their head about which they can talk
23 people would ask him: "help us find our objects"
23 people wrote the same sort of things on their cards
23 so he decided to create a list of object responsibilities: enumerated five, then ran out of steam. It was like trying to write down all the words you knew.
24 who has heard of software patterns? Good, more people than HyperCard.
24 and architect and his graduate students to study of why European cities are so much nicer than American. They concluded it was because European cities were built before their architects.
26 the first four patterns he came up with for people who had to make a design in a day
27 four things to design from the point of view of the user
28 for every task you have to do, make a window, which can be chopped up into panes, and their content must be standard: text, list, table, graph. And you can do things by popping up little menus
29 the previous project had been in basic, type 1 for yes, type 0 for no, type interface. Using this system they came back with a focused and complete approach to solving the problem
30 the designers made a beautiful design, but it got messed up like I hand it off to engineers, because he didn't teach them the patterns. Still, he saw very ordinary people do extraordinary work using this approach, this became the focus of his life
30 culminated in 1995 Conference on Pattern Languages of Programming Languages, in Illinois
31 people at the conference and say, this sure sounds like the World Wide Web
32 you should put all this on the web, so he went home and got a Web server, figured it out, through a 14.4 modem
33 maybe a couple hundred patterns could do all computer science
33 solicited text descriptions of patterns, and he could translate into HTML
33 did that for two programs, and then wrote a program that could process simple structured text
33 people couldn't follow the simple rules
34 created a form interface to the generator, you try your best, and I'll show you what you got (took himself out of the loop)
34 generator is a page or two of Perl, the first wiki
35 "We knew we needed to get a community together to pour content into this thing."
35 he remembered the hyperstack and one that ability to be able to know whether there was something on the other side of the link
35 probably picked up the wiki syntax camel case from Smalltalk
36 he is heard that some Wikipedians think that once they got rid of this convention, that's when Wikipedia took off
36 I'm not offended of getting rid of camel case, I don't care. I would get annoyed if people got rid of red links
37 developers have been talking about the difficulties of having cross-server/national Wikis linking to each other
38 "This is simple, but it is not necessarily easy."
38 I just put more RAM in my server, but you guys have done so much more. The developers of Wikimedia are totally awesome. Stand up. (Applause)
39 "You guys make me look so smart."
39 this is how it came together, or forgot some things that influenced me, where bad things that i knew not to do. I had read some papers from the first world wide web conference. Voting people in or out of the inner circle. all kinds of models about who does or doesn't get to do what. I figured all of that could be faked. I'll just let everybody do everything, and if this thing lasts six months, it'll be cool
41 for years later people began to ask them about it: his 11 design principles: open, incremental, organic, mundane, universal, overt, unified, precise, tolerant, observable, convergent
secion: the here and now (what happens to Wikis)
57 Ward's wiki feels like it's in its old age, growth is evening off. In this case, it was there to cause action (agile advocacy), and that action has been done
57 what is Wikipedia here to do? The potential of Wikipedia is so much stronger, than even my and success, was a therefore, and what is the cool thing to do?
58 year some problems we as a society are facing: population growth, energy, climate
59 these will require us to reframe the way we think, "we don't have a choice but to solve them or suffer."
59 if we can use computers and networks to help us solve these problems, it would be a good thing
59 you are thinking, I thought I was just coming to a conference... but remember we don't have to solve these problems all at once, and we don't have to do them alone. "Remember, you don't have to do it all at once, and you don't have to do it alone, and you don't even have to really believe that you'll do it. Y and and and and and and ou just have to act act like you do and do every little part, and everybody will fit it together and it could happen, which would be great for my kids. "
1:00 my new dream: moving from his earlier interests in (integrated circuits/radio, object models, simulation) to (fiber optics, peer-to-peer networks, cultural evolution)
1:02 perhaps if we embrace peer-to-peer in Wikis, Wikipedia would cease to be an encyclopedia, perhaps it would lose some of its earlier purpose, smarter people than I will figure out how to make it all work
1:02 when people change how they think, they will change how they talk. "I want to accelerate the rate at which culture changes in a positive way."
1:05 we got a lot objects, thousands or millions of computers, and the game is to connect and send the best objects back and forth. Nobody can hold the whole picture because this gigantic.
1:19 encyclopedia<->Wikimedia | simulated worlds<->folk memory | real world<->cultural evolution
questions
1:21 questioner: Wikis and Wikipedia seem to be predicated on openness, is it true you work for its antithesis Microsoft? And how do you feel about GPL?
1:22 I'm for developers, whether they are a Microsoft or not. When he first started Wikis, he wasn't too concerned about the license a road on the top of the "this is going to be open source somehow someday." I've since learned there's lots of little important distinctions in these licenses, getting them right is important. Microsoft is aware of this and wants to do the lights and stuff correctly too, I'm the first person to publish something at the creative Commons license, and I had tremendous support.
1:24 I'm glad to work there, and I'm glad to be here, and I'm still the same person that wrote the wiki
1:26 ... (rambling question)... how can we share our ideas and since the possibilities to the mainstream media?
1:26 That was a great question, could you repeat the question? (Laughter)
1:26 I had similar feelings, and the press is profound. "Informed people, expressing opinions, and driving towards consensus and insight is how it's got to work. Wikipedia is enfranchising,... it demands a certain level of performance that if you can't speak coherently, you know, you can't play. But there are plenty of people that can help you become coherent."
1:31 questioner: (confusing remarks about autonomy and decentralization being important for Wikipedia)...
Katherine Mangu-Ward
Larry Sanger
j=Citizendium Blog m=May 08 y=2007 r=20070509 12:55 UTC kw=history
More of the spat on history. What is a "founder"?
People are rarely called “founder” of brand new projects, particularly ones that have uncertain futures. It was only when The New York Times interviewed us, in September 2001, that we had to be identified in relation to the origin of Wikipedia.
Jimmy Wales
Jimmy Wales
Wikipedia
Ward Cunningham
m=August 20 y=2007 r=20070827 21:14 UTC kw=history
This began on March 25, 1995. A little later (May 1, 1995), an InvitationToThePatternsList caused an increase in participation. Growth has continued since then, to the point where the average number of new pages ranges between 5 and 12 per day.
WardsWikiTenthAnniversary occurred on March 25, 2005. At that time, we had about 30690 pages.
This is the first ever wiki site, founded as an automated supplement to the PortlandPatternRepository. The site was immediately popular within the pattern community, largely due to the newness of the Internet and a good slate of InvitedAuthors. The site was, and remains, dedicated to PeopleProjectsAndPatterns.
Andrew Whitworth
j=Wikibooks News m=September 10 y=2007 r=20070911 13:35 UTC kw=history
Wonders if the efforts to create Dewey Decimal Classification categories and templates was a wasted effort now that they have a new namespace organization and the DDC is apparently under copyright requires licensing
Kevin Kelly
Wikimedia Foundation
Wikipedia
Wikipedia
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070924 21:07 UTC kw=history kw=history
Started with a US flag, then the Nupedia logo of some odd text; November 2001 Cunctators's spherical text from Hobbes is chosen; Eric suggested it was unaesthetic, not international, and text-centric, the current logo comes from the "international contest" concluded in August 27 2003.
The winner was the logo contributed by The Cunctator. The quotation:
Man is distinguished, not only by his reason, but by this singular passion from other animals, which is a lust of the mind, that by a perseverance of delight in the continual and indefatigable generation of knowledge, exceeds the short vehemence of any carnal pleasure.
Monty Python
or=Wikimedia-l m=August 09 y=2005 r=20050809 kw=language
Mark, your mails about Klingon Wikipedia are the clear example of hypocrisy. While (at least) a hundreds of millions of humans are too hungry and to think about their native languages, you are wasting your and our time advocating for fans of one mass product.
or=Wikimedia-l m=August 09 y=2005 r=20050809 kw=language
Heck, why are we building Wikipedia _at all_ when there are millions of children in the world starving? Why are we even checking our e-mail? Shouldn't we be out giving food to hungry children? Why are we even on the internet? Or at computers? Every single waking moment, we should devote to feeding hungry children around the world!
or=Wikimedia-l m=August 10 y=2005 r=20050810 kw=language
thanks for doing this. I was among the most vocal opponents of Klingon from the start, and back then negotiated the compromise that there should be no InterWiki links to it from the other Wikipedias. This at least made sure that we wouldn't find a link to a Klingon article on [[World War II]] or [[Armenian genocide]], which I think is very important from the point of view of outside perception, and has prevented the issue from coming up much in the last few months.
or=Wikimedia-l m=August 17 y=2005 r=20050817 kw=language
A vote will force a choice between two or more specific options, which may even be poorly defined. A true consensus may lie somewhere outside of those specific options.
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 19 y=2005 r=20050919 kw=language
I mean there are several issues here: cultural imperialism, ambiguation (because of the many differences in American-English and English usage), and English learners learning to spell incorrectly and talk like Americans - why is it wrong to resist that?
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 19 y=2005 r=20050919 kw=language
I love these kinds of debates - the ones that can go around in circles until the cows \ come home. Sure, I get pissed off (AE pissed) at american spellings as much as the \ next bloke - but it doesn't mean I can't follow what's going on - nor does it mean \ that it will ever influence my pristine, strawberries and cream, Oxbridge, very \ best of the Queen's english - with a name like Giuseppe d'Angelo - you wouldn't \ expect otherwise would you? I love the fact that there are a couple of thousand words that might be found in \ wikipedia with two spellings (both equally acceptable). It makes it easier for me to \ point to my thick skulled paisani and say to them: don't worry if a word can be \ spelled two or three (or five or seven) ways in Sicilian - it's the same word and we \ all understand it regardless of how you want to spell it - it's not as big an issue \ as you think - look at English! - the language of the lower orders under Norman rule \ now rules the world - but the varieties are as many as teams in the English FA. It \ hasn't mattered one jot - there are more important things to worry about - like who \ will win out of the Sydney Swans and West Coast Eagles this Saturday at the MCG and \ will Bazza be rubbed out for a week? And has there truly been a leak in the brownlow \ voting? Now they're important questions! Salutamu pippu d'angelo
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 22 y=2005 r=20050922 kw=language
could software solve the problem of translating with minor language fairy nations?
This is something that was indeed discussed when that software was being developed. Apart from how to deal easily with exceptions, there are problems with differences in meaning of the same word - to pull an example out of the air, if a British user types "pants", it should be converted to "underpants" when viewed by a US one; but if it was typed by the US one, it should appear as "trousers" when viewed by the Brit. I'm not 100% sure the Chinese orthography issue has these kinds of double-mappings, but I can't remember. And what of words with two meanings, such as "fall" for "autumn" - you wouldn't want text coming out as "large trees sometimes autumn over"...
or=wikien-l m=September 11 y=2005 r=20050911 kw=leadership
I know it is bad form to quote an entire post just to say "me too" but I wanted to say that Daniel is right on the money here, and displays what I think of as true Wikipedia spirit. We have to have a passion to *get it right* or we'll be full of rampant nonsense.
or=WikiEN-l m=October 6 y=2005 r=20051020 kw=leadership
I don't agree with much of this critique, and I certainly do not share the attitude that Wikipedia is better than Britannica merely because it is free. It is my intention that we aim at Britannica-or-better quality, period, free or non-free. We should strive to be the best.
But the two examples he puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific embarassment. [[Bill Gates]] and [[Jane Fonda]] are nearly unreadable crap.
Why? What can we do about it?
or=wikien-l m=December 05 y=2005 r=20051205 kw=leadership
Last Sunday at the wikimeet in London, there was some informal discussion in which David Gerard referred to the new pages patrollers as being very brave people (which they are) standing in front of a firehose of nonsense (which it can be).
or=Wikimedia-l m=December 04 y=2005 r=20051204 kw=leadership
(Although, I should add, I think that mainstream media hysteria notwithstanding, there seems to be no compelling reason to do more than slowly and carefully seek cautious tweaks to our current model in the service of constant improvement.)
or=wikien-l m=February 01 y=2006 r=20060201 kw=leadership
Username Jimbo Wales Total edits 1890 Image uploads 9 (7 cur, 2 old) Distinct pages edited 727 Edits/page (avg) 2.60
or=wikien-l m=February 07 y=2006 r=20060207 kw=leadership
leadership userbox pedophilia
Like it or not, these rules don't apply to Jimbo. Did you forget that Jimbo retains the power to ban anyone from Wikipedia, and that there is no appeal or discussion if he chooses to do so? Everyone who edits is here because he and the board permit them to. And anyone who reverts his block of a user is wheel warring. By definition, Jimbo cannot participate in a wheel war because anyone who undoes his block is wrong.
or=wikien-l m=February 19 y=2006 r=20060219 kw=leadership
I'm saying that first of all, he should make a decission -- something he hasn't done yet. He says he wants them gone, but that's different from saying that they should all be removed. Just today I read one of his messages to Angela where he was giving doubts about how to handle the situation. He mentioned something about a bot removing all the userboxes, but only as a solution for the near future. As a leader, he should show more consistency and make a decission that stands. Either that, or listen to the voice of the community. If he does that, he would probably have to keep the userboxes. One way or another, people are getting fed up with this dispute.
or= m=March 24 y=2006 r=20060327 kw=leadership
At the request of Oscar from the Netherlands wikipedia, I have temporarily removed Waerth's status as a Steward, pending the resolution of his conflict with the nl.wikipedia community. I do this with a heavy heart, and recognize that something like this has never been done before, however, it became necessary in order to thwart Waerth's threats to override his own block on nl.wiki.
I would be grateful to receive the comments and suggestions of other stewards on this matter, especially because the circumstances are unprecedented.
Please let's not turn this into a flame fest, but rather a productive discussion of what policy should be.
or=wikien-l m=April 18 y=2006 r=20060418 kw=leadership
I think we should approach all criticisms with an active mind and judge the criticism on its own merits. What I have managed to see of WikiTruth (it seems to be down a lot) suggests strongly to me that it is a joke or prank by some banned wikipedia users rather than a serious attempt at criticism.
or=wikien-l m=July 22 y=2006 r=20060722 kw=leadership
Maybe this will help: anyone who starts an argument with "Jimbo said..." is guilty of Jimbocruft, which is worse than fancruft. :)
or=wikien-l m=December 15 y=2006 r=20061215 kw=leadership
Earle, I can tell you that nothing is approaching anything like the Open Directory Project. Is there a problem that WP:OFFICE articles have tended to sit there in the "wrong version" for too long, and that good editors are unsure how to proceed?
j=10 Zen Monkeys m=January 30 y=2007 r=20070130 23:38 UTC kw=leadership
JW: In general, I’m pretty skeptical of the idea. And I’m very skeptical of it being applied to Wikipedia in particular. But I think you can pick out elements of good sense from ideas in that general neighborhood – like the idea that given enough eyeballs all bugs are shallow. That’s kind of a wisdom of crowds idea. It says that lots of different people have lots of different contexts and information. And if they can come together in a way that productively aggregates or shares that information, you can end up with a pretty high quality of work that will be far better than what an individual or a small team could produce. But I think, when a lot of people talk about the wisdom of crowds, they’re thinking of some kind of mystical collective intelligence. And they’re thinking in terms of some sort of trust that somehow the averaging out of lots of ideas will end up being correct. And I’m a lot more skeptical about that.
If you’ve ever seen the film 12 Angry Men; it’s the story of a jury that’s trying to decide in a murder case. And there’s one guy who disagrees with everyone else. He thinks that the evidence does not prove that the defendant is guilty. He argues for two hours, and one by one he slowly convinces people that there are holes in the evidence. And in the end, they acquit. Well, that’s what happens sometimes in a really great Wikipedia debate. You may have eleven people on one side and one on the other. But if that one person is reasonable and thoughtful and deals with the criticisms one-by-one, people will actually change their minds and we end up with a strong product. That can’t really be described as the wisdom of crowds, in the way most people use it. So, I’m a little skeptical of that rhetoric.
j=Slashdot m=February 17 y=2007 r=20070219 17:16 UTC kw=leadership
"The flame wars between Linus Torvalds and the GNOME community continue to burn. Responding to Torvalds' recent claim that GNOME 'seems to be developed by interface Nazis' and that its developers believe their 'users are idiots,' a member of the Linux Foundation's Desktop Architects mailing list suggested that Torvalds use GNOME for a month before making such pronouncements. Torvalds, never one to back down from a challenge, simply turned around and submitted patches to GNOME and then told the list, '...let's see what happens to my patches. I guarantee you that they actually improve the code.' After lobbing that over the fence, Torvalds concluded his comments by saying, 'Now the question is, will people take the patches, or will they keep their heads up their arses and claim that configurability is bad, even when it makes things more logical, and code more readable.'"
or=wikien-l m=March 03 y=2007 r=20070303 kw=leadership
True leadership in difficult moments are measured by statements like the one made by Jimbo. Clear, forceful enough, but with an attitude and tone that demonstrate kindness and understanding of human nature. Well done.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=leadership
And diplomacy is something that works very well. I have many faults, but refusal to listen is not really among them. I make mistakes, but I am calm and educable. I try to land in the center on most issues, rather than staking out any sort of extreme positions. And I try to represent all parts of the community's interest in the broad building of consensus as being better than gang warfare.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=leadership
What's the question? If the question is, "What authority does Jimbo have?" the answer is spelled out quite clearly: "He has no authority beyond that which he has been granted implicitly through the trust of the community."
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2007 r=20070419 kw=leadership
I think just about any prominent admin could have unblocked Brandt by giving the reasons I have given, and they probably would have gotten some heat about it. The real test is: how to respond to that heat? As for me, I am happy to take the heat, and intend to simply answer questions as best I can.
or=wikien-l m=March 06 y=2007 r=20070306 kw=authority
I'm sick and tired of people misunderstanding what an "administrator" of Wikipedia is. It was a misnomer to begin with, and we've had nothing but trouble with this name ever since. Users misunderstand it (and ask admins to make editorial decisions). Media misunderstand it (and either do not explain it, or connect it to power and influence). And it's no wonder. "Administrator" could refer to a manager, or someone appointed by a court; it typically describes someone in an important official position.
j=All The Modern Things m=September 04 y=2007 r=20070904 17:11 UTC kw=leadership
I raised some question about the difficulty of authority in volunteer-created communities and groups. When can one legitimately speak on behalf of any community? When speaking to WMF it is easy enough, because if someone disagrees enough they can jump in and reply, but how about to outside organisations? Come-as-you-like volunteerism evidently works well for content creation, but there are other aspects where it doesn’t, such as creating partnerships with external groups. I’m also reminded of the closure of the French Wikiquote . For WMF to have to close an entire project seems, to me, to speak of a very deep failure somewhere in this system. No individual volunteer is accountable, but somehow the collective have to be. Was this an example of something that will be inevitable from time to time? Or are there things we can do, things that should have been done, to stop it from happening again elsewhere?
j=Wikipedia Blog m=September 20 y=2007 r=20070924 21:05 UTC kw=leadership
Mzoli's Meats controversy
Addendum: it's healthy for wales not to be treated like a monarch. But he does get cut more slack than regular users.
or=wikien-l m=October 24 y=2007 r=20071024 kw=leadership
(I have this funny feeling, after writing this email, that it is the sort of email likely to be misused in some fashion as a WP:JIMBOSAYS fallacy. This note at the top serves as notice that anyone citing this email as setting down policy on Wikipedia is being a goof. I am just discussing and thinking here and trying to be helpful.)
m=November 02 y=2007 r=20071102 14:31 UTC kw=leadership
Kings that are so arrogant that they suppose they are "god". A GodKing is a site owner or administrator who uses their special authority more than absolutely necessary. Wikis (especially MeatBall) generally frown on this sort of thing, so any such use may be considered an abuse. A GodKing is a bad thing (an AntiPattern; see CategoryRole).
or=wikien-l m=September 23 y=2005 r=20050923 kw=legal
individual user pages and their claims of fair use continue to be discussed
I'm strongly opposed to having any "license" options that state, imply, or suggest that the image is being used on Wikipedia *as a whole* as "fair use". The license listed for images which can only be used on Wikipedia as fair use should be called "nonfree" (or something equivalent) or even "unlicensed" and should state that the image is not licensed for use on Wikipedia. A separate tag should then be added to indicate that the image's use *on a specific article* is fair use.
or=wikien-l m=September 27 y=2005 r=20050927 kw=legal
As I understand it, if the image is not being used for the purpose of education, satire, or review, we have no fair use claim to it. This is not the same as saying it is not a "fair" use of the image, which is a subjective judgment anyway. Put another way, "fair use" does not mean "whatever is useful to us". We may only use it in a few specific contexts. Using them as organizational tools for meta pages about the encyclopedia doesn't qualify; therefore, such use would constitute copyright violation.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=legal
The Bentham plagarism issue did resolve itself, Arniep identified Susurrus as the contributor of the offending text, and the latter subsequently redrafted it.
j=Slashdot m=December 07 y=2005 r=20051207 kw=legal
How can open content communities be protected against attacks arising from incidental abuses (e.g., copyright or libel) within the community?
Shopwork, briefly, stands for any strongly collaborative, open source/open content work. The name is a portmanteau constructed from "shared open work"; the name arguably has the advantages of suggesting collaboration in both the original meaning of "shopwork" (which implies something constructed or fixed in a shop, perhaps by several workers together) and, with its parts reversed, "workshop" (which implies participatory learning).
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2006 r=20060321 kw=legal
copyright images from Leni Riefenstahl are public domain
There is no reason why this would not also apply to Mein Kampf. The state goverment of Bavaria claims that it owns the copyright, although at least one Swedish court has denied that claim while simultaneously saying that it was still protected even if the owner could not be identified. The net effect is that the German language edition is in the public domain in the United States. All four English translations are still protected. The three American ones were all properly renewed for the Houghton Mifflin Company of Boston. Murphy, the British translator, IIRC died in 1946, and his version would thus be protected until the end of 2016. A person with a lot of time on his hands could safely do a new translation that could be released under GFDL. :-)
or=wikien-l m=March 22 y=2006 r=20060322 kw=legal
Apparently Answers.com has filed a lawsuit against Babylon, a competitor creating an innovative (if proprietary) software product -- see atttached message. Answers.com claims Babylon violates one of its patents.
Certainly, it is not practical to only engage in business partnerships with companies whose behavior in its entirety our community in its entirety considers ethical. We are partnering with Yahoo!, in spite of their cooperation with the Chinese regime, for example. However, the proposed 1-Click-Answers partnership would go further than that, since the patents covering this exact tool are apparently at the heart of this lawsuit.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=legal
Their point of view : They claim Wikiquote extracted a substantial part of their database. They request that we remove the offending quotes (without giving any specific name) and also to provide them assurance that it will not happen again.
or=wikien-l m=April 23 y=2006 r=20060423 kw=legal
Can WP liability continue even after removal if WikiTruth mirrors the material
GFDL is a straw man. I'm talking about third party liability. Suppose I grant a servant access to my post, and one day someone sends me a copy of the latest Harry Potter novel in an envelope. Having opened the envelope and recognised the nature of its contents, I may take steps to dispose of it.
m=April 27 y=2006 r=20060427 13:53 UTC kw=legal
Update: Some people did some great digging and found a copy of the original US Dept. of State document. And guess what? It just barely predates the Wikipedia page. Though it closes the government issue, I can't help but think it still highlights a serious problem. With the aformentioned Wikipedia quality issues, it's disturbing to note that much of Wikipedia is still filled with robot generated content. It was a great way to fill up the database in the early days, but at what cost? Loss of accuracy as original sources are lost. Can't we just cite and avoid this whole problem?
m=April 27 y=2006 r=20060427 13:53 UTC kw=legal
This Wikipedia entry was created by a human, but one year later it was edited by a robot called "Conversion script." In Wikipedia's early days, many robots created Wikipedia entries, the most famous of which created articles on every single U.S. city Wikipedia had no entry on, by pulling material directly from the public domain CIA Fact Book. This is how Wikipedia can have entries on towns with nine people. About 100,000 entries, somewhere around 10% of Wikipedia, were written by robots pulling information from public domain sources.
This article was edited by Conversion script in 2002; I wouldn't doubt the robot had pulled it from the Department of State. The authors of the article don't cite where they got the information, something standard on Wikipedia, and so I would guess this is where it came from.
That said, it's different for Wikipedia to copy from the Department of State and not source it than for the Department of the State to copy from Wikipedia and not source it. In the latter case, Wikipedia's GFDL license would be broken. In the former case, it would still would probably be morally wrong, to me, and so I source the Department of State whenever I use it in writing entries.
j=News.com m=December 7 y=2005 r=20060522 14:11 UTC kw=legal
Thanks to section 230 of the Federal Communications Decency Act (CDA), which became law in 1996, Wikipedia is most likely safe from legal liability for libel, regardless of how long an inaccurate article stays on the site. That's because it is a service provider as opposed to a publisher such as Salon.com or CNN.com.
"I think that there's no liability, period," said Jennifer Granick, executive director of the Center for Internet and Society at Stanford University Law School. "Section 230 gives you immunity for this."
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060609 15:56 UTC kw=legal
A new revision-hiding user class, "oversight", was created recently. Users with the function can permanently delete page revisions containing personal information, copyright violations, or libelous content.
The permission was created after a number of problems involving the current deletion process. The biggest problem was the insertion of inappropriate content including the phone numbers of administrators and potentially libelous information into revisions and edit summaries. To make matters worse, pages with high numbers of edits, such as the administrators' noticeboard, were often the target of these attacks. Due to the number of edits, removing such revisions was often impossible without the intervention of a developer.
The revision-hiding function works more efficiently than the current deletion function. Rather than forcing the user to delete an entire page and restoring the other revisions, a user with "oversight" privileges can delete revisions individually, allowing for the move to occur with little disruption. The English Wikipedia is the only wiki with oversight privileges assigned so far.
For legal reasons, revisions deleted through oversight are not visible to anyone, including oversight members. The only way to retrieve such revisions is by manual restoration by a developer. There are currently 17 users with oversight privileges. These users include the 14 Arbitration Committee members, Jimbo Wales, developer Brion Vibber, and bureaucrat/checkuser Essjay, who was given the permission by the Arbitration Committee.
By deleting revisions using oversight, rather than having a developer do the work manually, all actions are automatically logged; previously, such actions were not logged. The log can be found at Special:Log/oversight; at press time, 93 revisions had been deleted since the tool was first used on May 28.
or=wikien-l m=May 30 y=2006 r=20060530 kw=legal
annoyed user sends dmca to remove all his previous contributions
3) He wasn't very happy about this (gosh, I wonder why?), and declared that we couldn't use a couple of *other* of his articles. He tried blanking the articles, but was reverted by Tawkerbot. So then he hit on the idea of a DMCA takedown notice to force us to remove his contributions from our records.
or=wikien-l m=June 11 y=2006 r=20060611 kw=legal
But with the rise of Brandt, Wikipedia Review, and whatever is going to come after them in this progression, the fact of the matter is that admins and regular editors are in danger too. Not just legal danger (As I assume the Foundation would use its legal resources to protect an admin who was sued), but personal danger.
or=wikien-l m=January 13 y=2007 r=20070113 kw=legal
I was submitting a description to something which I am the copyright holder of, but \ it was removed because it was copyright protected. When I pointed out I had rights to \ it, because it was something i/company owned - i was told you should not edit your \ own entries.
or=wikien-l m=January 04 y=2007 r=20070104 kw=legal
A group of editors set off to remove links to YouTube, requiring that before they went back in we clarified the copyright status and encyclopaedic merit of the links. This met with some resistance. There appear to be two camps now, which might be summed up as follows:
or=wikien-l m=February 19 y=2007 r=20070219 kw=legal
I was recently contacted by some law firm from Miami, Florida about some class-action lawsuit they were assembling that involved a bunch of former and current Wikipedia editors that are suing the Wikimedia Foundation for compensation for all the time they spent improving the site without pay. [[User:Snowboarder77]] 03:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
or=wikien-l m=November 02 y=2007 r=20071102 kw=legal
An injunction was sought against WMF to force it to remove content from the french wikipedia, that the plaintiffs deemed defamatory and infringing on their privacy. The plaintiffs also sought 63,000 Euros in damages, and requested from the WMF to provide contact information of the anonymous editor responsible for the edit.
j=Andrew Lih Blog m=November 13 y=2007 r=20071113 22:58 UTC kw=legal
When I met one of Baidu’s program managers a few months ago, I told her I’d be interested in talking to folks from Baidu Baike, just to let them know how to conform to the GFDL. It was actually fine to copy Wikipedia’s content, and also to censor stuff they don’t like, as long as they complied with the GFDL.
She got back to me saying Baidu’s folks on that side were “scared” of talking to folks involved with Wikipedia, after the strong comments by Wikimedia Foundation chairperson Florence Nibart-Devouard:
j=Foundation-l m=July 21 y=2007 r=20070723 21:26 UTC kw=legal
A dissagreement about the balance of working with others who might not have the same exact comitment to freedom
or=wikipedia-l m=April 15 y=2007 r=20070415 kw=misc
Yes... it's a damn complicated problem. I'm preparing a blog on the subject. I have no direct knowledge of the situation in Ro.wiki, but many things happening in the Cyrillic space show the same trend. I'd venture in saying that many post-communist wikies share a similar structure.
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2007 r=20070419 kw=misc
Personally, I consider some of these outcomes to be worse than a clean painless suicide, and I wouldn't be surprised if many suicidal peoply would agree. It could well be that reading this, they could decide to pick another, less riskier method, or perhaps to not commit suicide after all. These are both positive effects that the page could have.
Wikipedia is as safe as most interactive online environments. Participation in Wikipedia is probably safe for youths who know basic Internet safety practices. Wikipedia is not a social organization, and provides few opportunities for casual social interaction. Because other editors routinely monitor Wikipedia, inappropriate activity is quickly noticed and stopped.
However, Wikipedia is not bowdlerized or censored. It contains articles on subjects such as racial slurs, controversial political groups and movements, and sexual acts. Pages which are normally appropriate for children to use are occasionally vandalized with rude words or content which may be offensive. Vandalism is normally noticed and removed within a few minutes —if not seconds—but it is still possible that a person may access a page before this is dealt with. Teachers should supervise young children on Wikipedia, as they would in any other online environment.
However, a children's charity and the Wikimedia Foundation have produced a static safe selection from Wikipedia aimed at UK School children: see 2007 Wikipedia Selection for Schools.
or=wikien-l m=October 17 y=2007 r=20071017 kw=misc
Let me throw out an idea that might address the base problem, harassment, in a way that would perhaps obviate the need for censorship. I don't know if this is a great idea or not, but perhaps you folks can find and/or patch the flaws.
or=wikien-l m=October 21 y=2005 r=20051021 kw=market
Consideration of WP worth given how much it would cost to have a journalist write it at cents per word
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=market
In a press release on October 20, Answers.com announced a new partnership with the Wikimedia Foundation. Answers.com will launch a Wikipedia Edition of their popular 1-Click Answers software. Revenues from this service will be shared with the Wikimedia Foundation, who will license the use of their trademarks for this purpose for a 60-day trial, starting in January 2006.
or=wikien-l m=August 09 y=2006 r=20060809 kw=market
The big problem with paid editing on wikipedia is NOT that someone is getting paid to write, but rather that this causes a rather obvious conflict of interest and appearance of impropriety. This was my problem, and they immediately saw why this was not in our interest or theirs.
j=HipMojo.com m=October 27 y=2006 r=20061215 16:50 UTC kw=market
In a given month, Wikipedia.org stands to make $757K in search plus $2.8M in display banner ads, or $3,557,550. Projected over 12 months assuming no growth, that’s a whopping $42M per year in revenues.
You tally all of the costs:
The variable clearly is the content. But even if it were at the high end, you can see that with its enormous traffic and quality content, it could generate a yearly profit of $35 million! Of course, this is all for entertainment. So, we know the revenue and profit potential.
VALUATION MODELS
Publicly-Traded Company Basis: Looking at a basket of companies in the content, social networking, user generated content space that could be seen as reasonable comparables of Wikipedia.org, you get a P/E multiple of 30. Of course, you have to add a liquidity discount, so say 50% to be conservative, so a P/E of 15 times earnings. Multiple of 15 x a profit of $35 million = $560M valuation.
Recently Conducted M&A Basis: Last year, the average multiple acquiring companies paid was over 15.9 times EBITDA. This number goes up considerably, News Corp. for example paid 40 times EBITDA for IGN Entertainment, but IGN’s got a deep management bench, a long history of setting and meeting targets (I presume) and it has 300 employees. All to say, let’s be really conservative and estimate that given all of the factors and what if’s we outlined, Wikipedia.org would only get 15 times earnings, awfully close to the publicly-traded multiple after we applied a liquidity factor. That’s a multiple of 15.9 x a profit of $35 million = $600M valuation. Average out method 1 and 2 and you are looking at roughly $580 million market value for Wikipedia.org.
j=Slashdot m=January 03 y=2007 r=20070103 17:30 UTC kw=market
An anonymous reader writes "Some Wikipedians have objected to Virgin Unite's participation in the Wikimedia Foundation's fund drive, calling it adverising. But there's a strong case that Wikipedia should run advertising. The funds raised could support dozens of Firefox-scale free knowledge and free software projects, outspending all but the wealthiest foundations."
m=January 19 y=2007 r=20070120 16:03 UTC kw=market
Lately I've received some odd emails from wiki vendors Wikia and MindTouch about the domain wiki.com. A brief history: wiki.com (the domain name) was bought last year by entrepreneur John Gotts for a staggering $2.86 Million.
j=The Jason Calacanis Weblog m=November 03 y=2006 r=20061107 13:08 UTC kw=market
The search result page gets over 2M views per day. $2M views x $10-15 CPM is $20-30,000 a day or up to $1M a month. 60M searches is a lot of searches. The show will probably be out in a week or so (episode four).
j=Secrecy News m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070323 15:33 UTC kw=market
A March 19 profile of Indian Congress Party Leader Rahul Gandhi prepared by the Open Source Center (OSC) of the Office of Director of National Intelligence is explicitly derived from "various internet sources including wikipedia.org." A March 21 OSC profile of Rajnath Singh, president of India's Bharatiya Janata Party, is likewise "sourced from wikipedia.org."
or=wikien-l m=October 23 y=2007 r=20071023 kw=market
1. Wikipedia would make $100M+ if they put on Google Adsense on every page--easily. 2. Wikipedia could let users choose to turn ads on or off. 3. Wikipedia would make at least 20M if Wikipedia used Google Adsense for just search (which, ironically is what many wikipedia folks do anyway... search google for site:wikipedia.com). 4. If Wikipedia folks were concerned about being beholden to just Google we could setup a system to rotate ads from Google, Yahoo, MSN, etc. randomly (text ads of course). 5. If folks are concerned about the content of ads it is easy enough to block certain advertisers.
j=The Wikipedia Review y=2006 m=May 10 r=20060522 18:51 UTCj kw=faith
An example of "bad faith" which has now been deleted from the thread
QUOTE(everyking @ Tue 9th May 2006, 11:49pm) *
That's great. Thanks to Hushthis for finding that. "Terminal stupidity"...he's so obnoxious and egotistical he almost seems like a caricature. I remember him bragging about what a good arb he'd be based on the "bullshit detector" he'd developed from working with his students. What a guy. Someone should start sending copies of his WP cyber-bullying antics to other members of the faculty/administration there.
If I know anything about how grad school works, it wouldn't take much to put him in a position where he either decides to leave Wikipedia or decides that he doesn't need a Ph.D. after all.
or=wikien-l m=May 28 y=2006 r=20060528 kw=mean
You have a bunch of people who tend to be somewhat socially difficult to begin with, add another bunch of people who are not just difficult but downright mental, and give them a single enemy to focus on. Witness what humanity is capable of and be glad that it's just a website on the Internet. "He's a member of group X, therefore common human decency no longer applies."
m=July 25 y=2007 r=20071217 16:02 UTC kw=method
A reflection on the responses to her argument that class is reflected in teenager use of Facebook and MySpace
or=Wikimedia-l m=July 19 y=2005 r=20050719 kw=motivation
as many of you know, we have started a survey on the motivation of contributors to Wikipedia a week ago. So far, more than 150 participants from more than 10 countries completed our online survey -- thanks a lot to everyone!
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060411 13:54 UTC kw=motivation
nearly 30 types of awards!
It is the custom to reward Wikipedia contributors for hard work and due diligence by awarding them barnstars. To give the award to someone, just place the image on their talk page, and say why you've given it. Don't hesitate: be bold!
j=words & more m=July 26 y=2006 r=20060726 14:11 UTC kw=motivation
Do you remember the Seigenthaler effect and what it did to Wikipedia? Well trolly trolls that basically want to harm, have the same effect, because instead of keeping things quiet they heat up the atmosphere and people start to ask themselves why these guys might behave in such a way - if there is some real reason behind it or if it is just childish behaviour and the project is a valid one .... considering the feedback we have: we should thank these neat trolly trolls for doing marketing for us :-)
or=Wikimedia-l m=July 22 y=2005 r=20050722 kw=neutrality
I don't have it to hand, but I recently acquired a 1898 copy of Pear's Cyclopedia, one of the "small encyclopedias" that were quite common around then - and, indeed, it still exists today.
It had a general encylopedic section. I think the most wonderfully opinionated article I found in this was on Russia, which after a few breathless passages on how wonderful and civilised the place was ended with "...which is why Russia simply must get a port on the Mediterranean!" Extreme case, but not rare...
or=wikien-l m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051019 kw=neutrality
Maybe, but there are also those of us who believe that in the long run reaching consensus is the way to achieve quality. In fact, reaching consensus and reaching an NPOV in many ways go hand in hand, and NPOV is a "non-negotiable" qualitative measure.
j=Slashdot m=April 28 y=2006 r=20060428 18:47 UTC kw=neutrality
An anonymous reader writes "Whitedust is running an article which claims that lobbyists for Wal-mart have successfully waged a war against a fair viewpoint on Wikipedia's Wal-mart page. From the article: "Although Wikipedia maintains a 'Neutral Point of View' (NPOV) policy, the Wal-mart page is highly biased. Additionally, all criticism has, contrary to policy, practice, and the general opinion of those concerned, been moved to a Debates Over Wal-mart section. Even that page has noticeable resistance to negative points of view about Wal-mart."
or=wikien-l m=May 01 y=2006 r=20060501 kw=neutrality
Though all men are in error, they are not all in the same error, nor at the same time ... each therefore may possibly heal the other ... even as two or more physicians, all diseased in their general health, yet under the immediate action of the disease on different days, may remove or alleviate the complaints of each other
or=wikien-l m=May 04 y=2006 r=20060504 kw=neutrality
I think the ambiguity is necessary -- 10 fringe sources do not outweigh 2 sources from recognized authorities. But there's no easy way to define fringe and authoritative, and there never will be. It's the sort of thing which requires careful and impartial judgment, which is something which cannot be easily codified, and attempting to codify it is a bad idea.
j=MediaShift m=April 19 y=2006 r=20060419 14:55 UTC kw=neutrality
Isn’t the creation of these special pages an act of bias in and of itself? Why isn’t there a special page on Bush’s time as governor of Texas or on his religious beliefs? It’s true that Wikipedia is trying to take these more controversial aspects of an already controversial president’s entry off the table, in a way, to make the main entry less controversial. But the final effect feels biased.
In comparison to Wikipedia, Encarta at times sounds like a Bush cheerleader. For example, under the “Bush’s Second Term” heading, this line describes the re-election: “On Election Day, Bush soundly defeated Kerry and was elected to a second term.” The term “soundly defeated” only works in comparison to 2000, as previous GOP victories were by larger electoral and popular margins — something Encarta even points out.
So where is the middle ground, and can Wikipedia or other encyclopedias find it? The search for a “neutral point of view” mirrors the efforts of journalists to be objective, to show both sides without taking sides and remaining unbiased. But maybe this is impossible and unattainable, and perhaps misguided. Because if you open it up for anyone to edit, you’re asking for anything but neutrality.
or=wikien-l m=May 25 y=2006 r=20060525 kw=neutrality
Reporting unsourced allegations with a bogus "some say..." or "critics have said..." when the only such critics are random hate sites on the Internet (for example) is hardly neutral, in that it creates the impression of a controversy where none exists.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070813 14:45 UTC kw=neutrality
Content and POV forks
A content fork is usually an unintentional creation of several separate articles all treating the same subject. A point of view (POV) fork is a content fork deliberately created to avoid neutral point of view guidelines, often to avoid or highlight negative or positive viewpoints or facts. Both content forks and POV forks are undesirable on Wikipedia, as they avoid consensus building and violate one of our most important policies.
Article spinouts - "Summary style" articles
Sometimes, when an article gets long, a section of the article is made into its own article, and the handling of the subject in the main article is condensed to a brief summary. This is completely normal Wikipedia procedure; the new article is sometimes called a "spinout" or "spinoff" of the main article, see for example wikipedia:summary style, which explains the technique.
Even if the subject of the new article is controversial, this does not automatically make the new article a POV fork. However, the moved material must be replaced with an NPOV summary of that material. If it is not, then the "spinning out" is really a clear act of POV forking: a new article has been created so that the main article can favor some viewpoints over others.
However, it is possible for editors to act in bad faith and make article spinouts as POV forks. For instance: Editor A tries three times to insert a statement of his POV in an article section called "Criticism of XYZ"; each time the change is reverted by other editors. So he announces that he is spinning off a new article called [[Criticism of XYZ]], and for the initial text of this article, he uses the "Criticism of XYZ" section of the main XYZ article -- with the disputed statement that he could not get accepted by consensus. This is a POV fork; Editor A is trying to get around the fact that his changes have not met consensus by inserting them in a different location.
2) Wikipedia's neutral point-of-view (NPOV) policy contemplates inclusion of all significant points of view regarding any subject on which there is division of opinion. However, this does not imply that all competing points of view deserve equal consideration in an article.
3) As put forward in Wikipedia:Dispute resolution, Wikipedia works by building consensus. This is done through the use of polite discussion, in an attempt to develop a consensus regarding proper application of Wikipedia:Policies and guidelines such as Wikipedia:Neutral point of view. Surveys and the Request for comment process are designed to assist consensus-building when normal talk page communication has not worked.
8) Since the goal of Wikipedia is to provide accurate content, we cannot regard all references as equally valid and give them all equal weight. Editors should exercise care in the selection and use of references. The closer a reference is to current peer reviewed work, the better. Balance must also be attained by properly labeling and attributing significant dissenting views (where they exist).
3) William M. Connolley is widely viewed in Wikipedia as being highly knowledgeable in the field he is writing about.
5) Cortonin has persistently and aggressively advanced views which confuse metaphorical explanations of the greenhouse effect and greenhouses with the technical scientific phenomena underlying them. Despite determined efforts by other editors to inform him and point him to information on the subject he seems to have difficulty understanding both the use of metaphor and the scientific literature in the field, see Talk:Greenhouse effect. This is a persistent condition which seems likely to continue.
Cortonin: Six-month ban from editing certain articles
William M. Connolley: Six-month revert parole on certain articles
JonGwynne: banned from Wikipedia for three months and banned from editing climate related articles for six months
m=July 28 y=2007 r=20070831 12:37 UTC kw=neutrality
interesting metaphor of bigfoot which is continued in thread
A work of reference has only one warrant: that its entries are, so far as possible, accurate, up-to-date, and impartial. Bigfoot, the persistent belief and cultural phenomenon, has a place in a work of reference; Bigfoot the purported creature has no place in an accurate encyclopedia entry about human or primate biology. No number of Bigfootologists will alter that.
m=July 29 y=2007 r=20070831 12:39 UTC kw=neutrality
Knowledge comes in different kinds. A scientific theory works differently from a religious dogma, which works differently than a claim about the importance of a certain poet, which works differently from historical interpretation. To lump them all together indeed paints a bleak picture -- no sense writing encyclopedias at all, then. If people will always insist that the "make up their minds" themselves on every topic, then these people will be better served by just trolling the internet on their own, or by their local public library.
I think we need several tiers here -- this is based on, but extended from, the Neutrality policy docs:
simple fact; scientific theory; social science or historical argument; political, social, or religious issue
m=July 29 y=2007 r=20070831 13:00 UTC kw=neutrality
Well, when the rubber meets the road, the other side will claim that their views are not merely religious or political views, and this will force editors (or else whoever is on the scene) to declare that a certain theory is indeed merely religious or political. (Or motivated by mere ethnic concerns, or merely philosophical, or any other way we can label a theory and thereby say it's not scientific.) They will use that judgment to remove any mention of the theory from the page in question. This is obviously problematic.
Moreover, there is a more elegant and politic way forward, one that is not so heavy-handed, and one that will actually in the long run make the rational views seem more persuasive. Namely, include the allegedly unscientific views in the article (perhaps toward the bottom, perhaps only a paragraph--depends on the topic), explain at least briefly why those views are held and who holds them. Then say that mainstream scientists reject the view for whatever the strongest reason they have for rejecting it (e.g., it is not falsifiable). This last is absolutely crucial if we are to have a neutral presentation of the dialectic a limited space.
There's another thing we can do, by the way. We can say, somewhere very prominent like our "about" page, that we include views that scientists often consider to be pseudoscience, or whatever the case is, but that doesn't mean that we (Citizens) give any credence to the pseudoscientific theories. We include them for the simple reason that we want to allow people to make up their own minds for themselves. I don't suppose you'll ever answer the following hard questions, Russell, but let's see: don't you agree that it is preferable both to give people the means to make up their own minds, and to give them the sense that we aren't trying to make up their minds for them? Isn't it more persuasive that we earn their trust in this way? Do you think that it makes people generally better off, if we simply leave out theories or ideologies with which we disagree, so that people are not exposed to such dangerous nonsense?
8. Wikipedia has a disproportionately large number of gays, transgendered, and furries. The reason for this has yet to be satisfactorily explained, although it has been suggested by NullC that "all new media are first explored by the minorities and the marginalized".
13. Raul's Razor - An article is neutral if, after reading it, you cannot tell where the author's sympathies lie. An article is not neutral if, after reading it, you can tell where the author's sympathies lie.
14. Given a communication forum with a sufficiently high concentration of trolls, the trolls will do a superb job of discrediting themselves.
1. The zeroeth law of Wikipedia - The problem with Wikipedia is that it only works in practice. In theory, it can never work (-Unknown)
Godwin like
3. Slowking Man's law (Wikipedia's version of Godwin's law) - As a debate over user conduct or article content continues, the probability of one user accusing another of being a deletionist approaches one.
Jfdwolff's corollary - The longer an AFD page, the higher the probability that the original poster will be accused of censorship.[1]
Dysprosia's law (Alternate version of Godwin's law) - As a debate over anything related to Wikipedia continues, the probability of one user asking for Jimbo Wales's intervention approaches 1.
Goatsewin's Law: As the number of edits on a wiki page increases, the probability of a Goa Tse being placed at the top approaches one.
16. Mindspillage's law: As the length of an argument on wikipedia-l or foundation-l approaches infinity, the probability of it turning into a language debate approaches 1.
good faith
27. Carbonite's law: The more a given user invokes Assume good faith as a defense, the lower the probability that said user was acting in good faith. (see also: WP:AAGF)
common sense
44. the wub's first law: The impossible holy grail of Wikipedia policy is a complete definition of common sense. It follows that anything less is flawed by comparison.
m=August 30 y=2007 r=20070831 17:50 UTC kw=norms
One of Wikipedia's most important, and most embattled, policies is the infamous "Ignore All Rules". It's been there for a very long time, and in that time has changed quite a good deal from the original "If rules make you nervous and depressed, and not desirous of participating in the Wiki, then ignore them and go about your business" (which is the same form it had when I joined up in 2004, although more bits of it were wikilinked then than in the original). Today's "If the rules prevent you from working with others to improve or maintain Wikipedia, ignore them" is different from this in a very subtle and pernicious way: you are only permitted to ignore the rules if you are supported by a clique. Sadly, IAR has been subjected to constant attacks of this sort, almost entirely by people who either fail to understand IAR, or understand it but object to the principle behind it.
I admit that I don't pay a lot of attention to what IAR (or any other policy on Wikipedia) actually says. My experience is that Wikipedia policy documents are edited mainly by "policy wonks": people who seem to have a fetish for generate huge reams of policy without necessarily contemplating whether the policies they write either reflect actual practice or are actually calculated to benefit the encyclopedia. (There are also quite a few people who are constantly manipulating policy for "nefarious" purposes, but I don't want to dwell on that.) These people mean well, but that doesn't mean that their efforts yield positive results. The road to hell, after all, is paved with good intentions.
IAR is especially problematic to policy wonks. By and large, these are people who would prefer that everything be governed by well-defined, clear rules that anyone can understand so there is no excuse for not following them. The problem with IAR is that it gives explicit license to not follow the rules: anathema! Their preference would be to get rid of IAR, but Jimbo won't let them. Since they can't get rid of it, they spend a great deal of energy trying to find a way to write it that narrows its scope as much as possible while not offending the Jimbo-God by actually deleting the policy. The two thousand edits IAR has experienced in the past two years are the collective papercuts of these editors circling about, seeking to find the chink in IAR's armor that allows them to stab it dead, and never understanding that IAR reflects a attitude of the "old core" Wikipedia community that cannot be killed without killing that core.
The real problem here is that IAR is the "Zen koan" of Wikipedia policy: if you understand it, you don't need the words, and if you don't understand it the words (no matter what they are) won't help. Unfortunately, the proportion of Wikipedia's editor base today that understand what Zen is, or more generally understand how to balance opposing tensions, is small and shrinking fast. Many of Wikipedia's policies are in opposition to one another, and it is necessary to strike a balance between two extremes in order to move forward in a reasonable way. (This is not the sum total of IAR, but it is a significant part of it.) Unfortunately, the "follow the rules at all expenses" crowd (many of whom are Aspies, or so it seems) doesn't tolerate balancing tests well: they want hard, immutable, objective, brightline rules, not multifactor tests that evaluate competing interests in what is inevitably a subjective way.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070813 14:52 UTC kw=norms
This page in a nutshell: If you see something that can be improved, do not hesitate to do so yourself.
… but don't be reckless.
Though the boldness of contributors like you is one of Wikipedia's most precious assets, it is important that contributors not edit recklessly. "Being Bold" does not excuse a disregard of Wikipedia:Verifiability, Wikipedia:Neutral Point of View and the other five pillars of Wikipedia. But anything you end up doing that turns out badly can be reverted, often quite painlessly. Do not be insulted if that does happen; users often display ownership of the articles they've written, whether intentionally or not. The BOLD, revert, discuss cycle is one popular way to use the "Be Bold" approach responsibly, especially if other editors have questions over your ideas or revert your edit.
or=Meatball m=October 24 y=2007 r=20071024 21:44 UTC kw=norms
The book doesn't really talk about the Wiki Way, except at its fringes. A wiki, at its most efficient and most stunning, is not a category. It is not a technology. It is not a notebook. It is not a website. It is not a medium. It is not a community. It is not a place. Rather, it is the sum totality of everything, including all those things; and all those things centre around the dynamic of its essential parts and dimensions: community, content, code, network, atemporal, place.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20071110 14:23 UTC kw=norms
If an issue doesn't even have a snowball's chance in hell of getting an unexpected outcome from a certain process, then there is no need to run it through that process.
or=Wikimedia m=August 15 y=2006 r=20071114 kw=norms
Wales says all three are equal, prompting a comparison to the holy trinity
I consider all three of these to be different aspects of the same thing, ultimately. And at the moment, when I think about any examples of apparent tensions between the three, I think the right answer is to follow all three of them or else just leave it out of Wikipedia. We know, with some certainty, that all three of these will mean that Wikipedia will have less content than otherwise, and in some cases will prevent the addition of true statements. For example, a brilliant scientist conceives of a new theory which happens to be true, but so far unpublished. We will not cover it, we will not let this scientist publish it in Wikipedia. A loss, to be sure. But a much much bigger gain on average, since we are not qualified to evaluate such things, and we would otherwise be overwhelmed with abject nonsense from POV pushing lunatics. There is no simple a priori answer to every case, but good editorial judgment and the negotiation of reasonable people committed to quality is the best that humans have figured out so far. :) --Jimbo Wales 15:33, 15 August 2006 (UTC)
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=nor
That is not a contradiction at all. If you can produce a source which tells us that this obscure lawsuit was important, and which echoes your original research and analysis into what happened, then re-insert it with appropriate sourcing. In the meantime the reliance on your own original historical research is problematic, and you should not reintroduce it until you have a secondary source.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=nor
To clarify then: we should avoid OR, and one of the reasons is that it leads to cases like this: where a one-sided interpretation of events, hotly disputed by the subject of the biography, events that are probably not notable, is included in the article with a plethora of statements which are documented by footnotes.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=nor
A good question of whether people are trying to use no original research as a proxy for notability
I do not agree that stating that A sued B, when you have a court document stating that A sued B, is a "matter of interpretation involving original research." In fact, I find this to be quite strange.
You can argue that it's a notability problem if the only source is the court document, but poor notability is not original research.
or=wikien-l m=November 13 y=2005 r=20051113 kw=notability
And there's no obvious way that I can think of to persuade these people to do something more "serious" with their time. They want to write about World of Warcraft, so that's what they'll write about. We can hold them to NPOV and all that good stuff, and that'll be fine.
or=Wikimedia-l m=November 19 y=2005 r=20051119 kw=notability
My criterion is simple: is there enough independantly verifiable information available on the person in order to make an article? If there is, then the subject is notable. If there isn't, the subject isn't notable.
or=wikien-l m=January 18 y=2006 r=20060118 kw=notability
Hi, There are a great deal of arguments over what is and isn't notable in various fields, but not much agreement on what the goals of having notability guidelines at all - or why we want to delete well written articles about arguably "unimportant" topics. In particular, as someone recently pointed out, why we want to (hypothetically) keep a stub written about a species of extinct beetle little is known about, while we would delete a page about an internet chat site with thousands of active users.
or=wikien-l m=February 22 y=2006 r=20060222 kw=notability
No, I do agree that it's not a open-and-shut decision. But like Jimbo said, if we still care about this article in a year, then we can argue then. It's a pretty good way to find out notability. My logic goes like this: a person with a disability is not inherently notable, a sex offender is not inherently notable, so a combination of the two is only barely notable. Given that we should have high editorial standards, I think our Brian Peppers slips beneath our bar.
or=wikien-l m=March 26 y=2006 r=20060326 kw=notability
britannica wp porn
I have no particular attachment to pornstar bios, but 'for who we have no real name' does not seem a valid objection to me - most if not all of our entertainment industry bios use the person's 'stage name' as the title of the article, and only mention their 'real name' briefly in passing, if at all, so the lack of a 'real name' doesn't make the article dramatically different
or=wikien-l m=September 29 y=2006 r=20060929 kw=notability
The volume of corporate vanity/vandalism which is showing up on Wikipedia is overwhelming. At the office, we are receiving dozens of phone calls *per week* about company, organization, and marketing edits which are reverted, causing the non-notable, but self-aggrandizing authors, to scream bloody murder. This is as it should be. However, I am issuing a call to arms to the community to act in a much more draconian fashion in response to corporate self-editing and vanity page creation. This is simply out of hand, and we need your help.
j=washingtonpost.com m=December 03 y=2006 r=20061204 14:43 UTC kw=notability
In fact, Wikipedia jettisons more than 100 entries every day, many of them from people who posted autobiographies after registering on the site.
or=wikien-l m=August 15 y=2006 r=20060815 kw=notability
What happened is that the class instructions specifically told students to stay \ "within the definition" and gave a link to WP:NOT. Approximately FOUR HUNDRED \ articles were submitted. Most of them had no obvious connections with Dartmouth \ College and passed more or less unnoticed.
or=wikien-l m=May 01 y=2006 r=20060501 kw=open
For years, we have been using the term "free content" to refer to our projects. However, what exactly is free content? Does it include the right to make commercial use? Does it allow derivative works? A year ago, Anthere, one of our elected trustees, noted that the English Wikipedia article [[free content]] is confused and contains no clear definition. This is no surprise, as the term has evolved purely through its usage. One year on, the article doesn't look much better and still doesn't contain a single reference.
In order to be recognized as "free" under this definition, a license must grant the following freedoms without limitation:
The freedom to study and apply the information: The licensee must not be restricted by clauses which limit their right to examine, alter or apply the information. The license may not, for example, restrict "reverse engineering", and it may not limit the application of knowledge gained from the work in any way.
The freedom to redistribute copies: Copies may be sold, swapped or given away for free, as part of a larger work, a collection, or independently. There must be no limit on the amount of information that can be copied. There must also not be any limit on who can copy the information or on where the information can be copied.
The freedom to distribute modified versions: In order to give everyone the ability to improve upon a work, the license must not limit the freedom to distribute a modified version, as above, regardless of the intent and purpose of such modifications. However, some restrictions may be applied to protect these essential freedoms, as well as the requirement of attribution (see below).
There are certain restrictions on the use or interchange of works that we do not feel impede on the essential freedoms enumerated above. These are described below.
Attribution
Attribution protects the integrity of an original work, and provides credit and recognition for authors. A license may therefore require attribution of the author or authors, provided such attribution does not impede normal use of the work. For example, it would not be acceptable for the license to require a significantly more cumbersome method of attribution when a modified version of the licensed text is distributed.
Protection of freedoms
The license may include clauses that strive to protect the essential freedoms of the work, such as:
transparent copies: a clause requiring all copies of the work to be in a transparent file format (documented and not encumbered by patents) which allows the work to be freely used in perpetuity
copyleft or "share-alike": a clause requiring that derivative works are entirely made available under a license which meets this definition
no technical restrictions: a clause prohibiting the use of technical measures designed to prevent individuals to whom the work is distributed from exercising any of the freedom described above
However, the license must not limit the licensee's actions beyond those which may have a plausible and direct impact on the essential freedoms of the work or its derivatives. Explicitly, it must not limit commercial use of the work.
or=wikipedia-l m=May 19 y=2006 r=20060519 kw=open
There are many private, semi-private and secret lists in which wikimedians make decisions with each other without ever telling anyone or explaining. Openness has gone overboard a very long time ago. Most things you read on the public lists have been discussed privately long before an outsider found out about them.
or=wikien-l m=June 20 y=2006 r=20060620 kw=open
That's right. But I also fully agree with Cunctator's point (if I understand him) that not every case of allowing more people to edit would count as "more open". For example, if we had a rule that "Only Jimbo is allowed to edit this article" then this would be a lot LESS open than "no one is allowed to edit this article".
Openness refers not only to the number of people who can edit, but a holistic assessment of the entire process.
I like processes that cut out mindless troll vandalism while allowing people of diverse opinions to still edit. Those are much better than full locking.
m=February 24 y=2005 r=20060726 14:11 UTC kw=open
Defines an open company as one with open sourcecode, data, APIs, pricing, bugracking, feature voting, communication/community, documentation, customer support
or=FSF m=April 19 y=2001 r=20060811 13:32 UTC kw=open
Stallman's theoretical/historical perspective on coypright as well as his types of works: functional, personal, aestetic
The U.S. is using all of these measures now.
First, guards watching copying equipment.
There's a plan now to introduce this software into every hard disk, so that there could be files on your hard disk that you can't even access except by getting permission from some network server to access the file. And to bypass this software or even tell other people how to bypass it is a crime.
Second, harsh punishments. A few years ago, if you made copies of something and handed them out to your friends just to be helpful, this was not a crime; it had never been a crime in the U.S. Then they made it a felony, so you could be put in prisons for years for sharing with your neighbor.
Third, informers. Well, you may have seen the ads on TV, the ads in the Boston subways asking people to rat on their co-workers to the information police, which officially is called the Software Publishers Association.
And fourth, collective responsibility. In the U.S., this has been done by conscripting Internet service providers, making them legally responsible for everything their customers post.
And, finally, propaganda, starting in childhood.
So we need to look at different kinds of works, and I'd like to propose a way of doing this.
This includes recipes, computer programs, manuals and textbooks, reference works like dictionaries and encyclopedias. For all these functional works, I believe that the
The second class of work is works whose purpose is to say what certain people think. Talking about those people is their purpose. This includes, say, memoirs, essays of opinion, scientific papers, offers to buy and sell, catalogues of goods for sale.
The third category of works is aesthetic or entertaining works, where the most important thing is just the sensation of looking at the work. Now for these works, the issue of modification is a very difficult one because on the one hand, there is the idea that these works reflect the vision of an artist and to change them is to mess up that vision.
p=WikiChix m=January 12 y=2007 r=20070112 22:04 UTC kw=open
Offlist chat about the recent discussions on systemic gender bias in Wikipedia made it clear that a number of women were not comfortable contributing to the conversation there. This inspired the creation of WikiChix in November 2006. WikiChix is a wiki and mailing list for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis, to promote wikis to potential female editors, and for general discussion of wikis in a friendly female-only environment.
or=wikien-l m=December 04 y=2006 r=20061204 kw=bias
Following recent discussions on wikien-l where a number of women said they were not comfortable contributing to the discussion, a new mailing list has been created for female wiki editors to discuss issues of gender bias in wikis and ways to encourage more female editors, and just as a place that females can feel more comfortable posting to.
"Hi Cunctator. We're only accepting women at this time. I suggest you comment on the existing Wikimedia lists instead. This presence of this list isn't meant to prevent men commening - which you can still do on wikien-l etc."
or=wikien-l m=December 06 y=2006 r=20061206 kw=open
I'd be suspect of the empirical claim you are making, how do you know there is no difference? Questions of bias, particularly gender, are difficult. But there is no doubt that some *perceive* a gendered culture in common spaces, otherwise there'd be no impetus to start the list.
or=wikien-l m=December 05 y=2006 r=20061205 kw=open
Has a need for British-only or atheist-only lists been identified? I haven't noticed ay such discussion on this list. If such an issue has been identified and discussed, then it's worth considering. If it's just based on the fact that people feel excluded - sure, I don't like being excluded from things either. But the list was organised to avoid a specific problem - women feeling uncomfortable posting to this male-dominated list where explicitly sexist statements (even if they weren't meant seriously) are left unchallenged by a large number of people.
or=wikien-l m=December 05 y=2006 r=20061205 kw=open
At the time it looked like misogyny, not trolling. Tolerance of things like that is probably one of the things that make some women unwilling to post to this list. You can't judge things on the basis of who says it. The fact that I respect Alphax's opinion (in general) and think that he's often one of the more sensible people posting to this list is all the more reason to call him on the statement he made.
or=wikien-l m=December 05 y=2006 r=20061205 kw=open
A better solution would be to kick any of the men that behave like that, not to assume that "all men are chauvinist pigs".
or=wikien-l m=December 05 y=2006 r=20061205 kw=bias
Excellent. I still think it's a bad idea, but if it's not being supported in any way by Wikimedia Foundation there's no need to complain about it here any more.
Because it hasn't been requested. The existence of Debian Women does not prevent anyone from requesting the creation of a new list or subproject.
LinuxChix is intended to be an inclusive group where everyone is and feels welcome. We do ask, however, that everyone keep in mind that it is primarily inteded as a womens' group. What this means is: sexist remarks are unwelcome. In fact, Deb originally asked that everyone avoid all sweeping generalizations: sexism can be targetted at men as well, which is also significantly uncool. All the silly -isms are discouraged and will not be tolerated: sexism, ageism, racism, etc.
LinuxChix is intended to be primarily for women. The name is an accurate reflection of that fact. Men are welcome because we do not want this group to be exclusive. Also, not everyone who considers themselves female is necessarily biologically female. "Sex" and "gender" are very different things.
j=AlterNet m=December 19 y=2006 r=20070220 21:35 UTC kw=open
Joi Ito noted there were more female WPians than bloggers
Although this is a legitimate genre of science fiction and many famous SF writers such as Ursula K. Le Guin and Kim Stanley Robinson consider all or part of their work to be feminist, the entry was subject to such an intense revision war that at last administrators determined that it should be removed and replaced with "women in science fiction" in 2002. Obviously, "women in science fiction" is hardly the same thing as feminist science fiction, in the same way an entry on "operating systems" could hardly be said to replace an entry on "Linux." It wasn't until June of this year that the category "feminist science fiction" was created again, after a great deal of agitation.
or=wikien-l m=January 24 y=2007 r=20070124 kw=open
One of the prices we pay for openness is inconsistency - it's just the way it is. Over time this tends to correct itself, albeit slowly.
or=wikien-l m=August 31 y=2006 r=20060831 kw=open
For the record: I have been philosophically committed for a very long time to thinking about how to solve various problems with *more freedom* and *more transparency* rather than *more control*. Examples of how this has been successful would include the innovation of semi-protection rather than protection, and vandalism flagging rather than semi-protection (the innovation currently being proposed for test in the German wikipedia).
Very exclusive: the only participants permitted are not just experts, but distinguished experts. Example: Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy. One of the finest free reference works available online, just by the way. Would it be appropriate to accuse them of being “elitist”?
Exclusive: experts/professionals only. Examples: most big newspapers and magazines; some academic journals.
Expert-focused, but semi-expert-welcoming: while experts are most actively recruited, honored, and empowered, the system is also open to people who have a solid but nonexpert understanding of the relevant material. Example: Encyclopedia of Earth; some academic journals (think: first papers written by grad students).
Open, but making a special role for experts: no expertise is needed to participate, but experts are invited to fill a special role in the system. Example: Citizendium.
Radically epistemically egalitarian: everyone may participate, and no roles are made for experts; everyone is on an equal footing when it comes to making judgment about what is allegedly good, true, and beautiful. Example: HotOrNot, Wikipedia, and most Web 2.0 projects.
or=wikien-l m=March 29 y=2007 r=20070329 kw=open
9 of the top 10, and 15 of the top 20 articles, are currently semi-protected. Of the 5 that aren't, 2 have been sprotected for major portions of the last month, 2 for short portions of the last month, and only one has never been protected.
or=wikien-l m=March 31 y=2007 r=20070331 kw=open
as a premise that what we've done is wrong. I, personally, disagree. I think we've got a pretty good encyclopedia. It needs work, but it's good enough to go public with, which, thank God, since we went public with it. Sensible users can use it well.
j=New York Times m=June 17 y=2006 r=20070525 17:31 UTC kw=open
Those measures can put some entries outside of the "anyone can edit" realm. The list changes rapidly, but as of yesterday, the entries for Einstein and Ms. Aguilera were among 82 that administrators had "protected" from all editing, mostly because of repeated vandalism or disputes over what should be said. Another 179 entries — including those for George W. Bush, Islam and Adolf Hitler — were "semi-protected," open to editing only by people who had been registered at the site for at least four days. (See a List of Protected Entries)
"Protection is a tool for quality control, but it hardly defines Wikipedia," Mr. Wales said. "What does define Wikipedia is the volunteer community and the open participation."
"A cooling-off period is a wonderful mediative technique," said Ross Mayfield, chief executive of a company called Socialtext that is based on the same editing technology that Wikipedia uses.
changed from "Growing Wikipedia revises its 'anyone can edit' policy"
j=O'Reilly.net m=July 28 y=2001 r=20070606 17:28 UTC kw=open
Articulates his preference for BSD-style license over GPL
Freedom Zero for me is to offer the fruit of your work on the terms that work for you. I think that is what is absolutely critical here. Let there be competition in the marketplace; that is the answer. Let people use whatever license they choose and if their customers don't like it they will have other choices. Because of the technological changes, we are entering an era of greater choice. The fact is, Microsoft's past history is past. We are entering a new era, not of just open source but of profound technological changes. The future is open and we can make that future be what we want it to be.
j=LinuxDevCenter.com m=August 15 y=2001 r=20070606 17:29 UTC kw=open
Freedom is being able to make decisions that affect mainly you. Power is being able to make decisions that affect others more than you. If we confuse power with freedom, we will fail to uphold real freedom. That is what Tim O'Reilly did in his essay, My Definition of Freedom Zero. He advocated a "basic freedom" which is really a form of power.
Tim O'Reilly says the most fundamental software freedom is: "The freedom to choose any license you want for software you write." Unstated, but clearly implied, is that one person or corporation chooses the rules to impose on everyone else. In the world that O'Reilly proposes, a few make the basic software decisions for everyone. That is power, not freedom. He should call it "powerplay zero" in contrast with our "freedom zero".
We in the Free Software Movement want programmers to have freedom. Most of us are programmers, and we want freedom for ourselves as well as for you. But each of us uses software written by others, and we want freedom when using that software -- not just when using our own code.
j=LinuxDevCenter.com m=August 15 y=2001 r=20070606 17:29 UTC kw=open
Bradley clearly misunderstands my article and my argument. First off, if you accept his definition of freedom as "being able to make decisions that affect mainly you" versus power as "being able to make decisions that affect others more than you", then clearly the GPL is just as much about "power" as any Microsoft license, since it is binding on all who use the software.
Second, I did not say that "Microsoft has put its past behind it." What I said was that the market conditions that allowed Microsoft to act in such an abusive way have passed their peak, and that history is on our side in making them act in a more open way. It is really important not to make distorted distinctions based on temporary conditions, such as Microsoft's abuse of its monopoly position.
But I believe that Bradley goes too far when he identifies any proprietary software as "harming users by denying their freedom." It's ironic that in defending the GPL against Microsoft's distorted claims that the GPL will "infect" other software, free software advocates point out that you are only bound by the GPL if you choose to use the software. Well, you are only bound by proprietary software if you choose to use it.
I believe that free software and open source are really a "better mousetrap" for all the practical reasons that Bradley outlines in his article. We need forceful licenses like the GPL because everyone doesn't realize that yet, and so it's a defensive move against proprietary vendors who treat harm to their users as "collateral damage" in wars against their competitors. Over time, I believe that the benefits of open source will become so evident that counter-productive activity by proprietary software developers will abate.
I want to return to the idea of freedom zero as my choice as a creator to give, or not to give, the fruits of my work to you, as a "user" of that work, and for you, as a user, to accept or reject the terms I place on that gift. If that is power, so be it. Both Richard Stallman and Bill Gates exercise the very same power every time they release a piece of software. But the burden of power is to use it wisely and well.
Freedom is power, and those who use their power to reduce the freedom of others are not using it well. But if we take away the power of choice, and force people to release their work on terms not of their choosing, we do an even greater harm than someone does by offering their work on onerous terms that no one is forced to accept.
or=wikien-l m=June 15 y=2007 r=20070615 kw=open
There have been various suggestions in the past. (1) That only admins be allowed to edit policy pages, and we could extend that to BLP issues, which would include BLP AfDs; (2) same as (1) but using a minimum edit count rather than adminship; (3) that only users willing to identify themselves be allowed to be edit BLPs or decide on BLP deletions or policies. I do think it's time we started discussing these options seriously.
or=wikien-l m=September 11 y=2007 r=20070911 kw=open
are hosted on JSTOR. JSTOR is a fine repository of information, but it is not free. People researching from home do not have access to the articles that are cited, and are expected to pay to see them, unless they go to a participating library, usually a university library. Very few other people have access to their collection. The fact is that these are journal articles that can be found in most good libraries in their paper format. They are then free and available to everyone. In fact, JSTOR is simply a pay-to-view library. Consider too that the actual source is the journal cited, not JSTOR per se. As such, I would encourage peopl to link directly to the magazine that contained the article, not the JSTOR collection which will charge to read it. We speak of free content and free images. I want to suggest that we expand the focus to free external links as well. Danny
j=Slashdot m=September 19 y=2007 r=20070920 12:09 UTC kw=open
Not according to some participants in the 'open' source project itself, they say the biggest problem with OO.o is the fact that Sun codes, owns & makes all key decisions for the project when it should be more community oriented.
or=wikien-l m=October 02 y=2007 r=20071002 kw=open
Free refers to what you can do with the encyclopedia, it's free as in open source, you can make, share and reuse any of the content, pretty much, and it costs you nothing. The actual project isn't "Free" as in Free Speech. We don't let you put anything and everything on there, so no articles on your pet, your favourite teacher and so on. That stretches to political stuff, you don't get to post anything you want and in any manner you wish, it has to be as neutral as possible and as reliable as possible. Given I've not looked at this issue in any great detail, I'm not going to go much further, but freedom of speech on Wikipedia only extends to the creation of a fair and balanced article, no more, no less. We don't leave out unpleasent stuff and we don't include heavily biased stuff.
or=wikien-l m=October 26 y=2007 r=20071026 kw=open
In December 2005 during the John Seigenthaler biography controversy (<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Seigenthaler_Sr._Wikipedia_biography_controversy</a>) it was decided to require that users create an account and log in before starting a new article. The ability of people to make changes without logging in remained unchanged.
or=wikien-l m=December 03 y=2007 r=20071203 kw=open
Two issues have recently brought the questions of the arbcom mailing lists to light. 1) The rather vile thread on the RfArb talk - with its allegations that named individuals have leaked - allegations that by their nature can neither be substantiated or repudiated. 2) The 'Giano question' - a very legitimate question of whether if Giano were on arbcom he'd read posts about himself in the arbcom archives - and what he'd to with such information. To his credit, Giano's answers showed great integrity. But this raises the question: if there are posts about Giano in there, why shouldn't he be able to read them? And for that matter, if there are posts about me, why shouldn't I?
j=The Register m=December 07 y=2007 r=20071207 23:30 UTC kw=open
A debate about how someone at Overtsock.com managed to get his whole company IP blocked over some weird fued over "nake shorting" in the market, antisocialmedia.net, and BADSITES.
This is true. Despite its popular reputation as a Web 2.0 wonderland, Wikipedia is not a democracy. But the totalitarian attitudes of the site's ruling clique go much further than Jimbo cares to acknowledge.
In early September, the Wikipedia inner circle banned edits from 1,000 homes and one massive online retailer in an attempt to suppress the voice of one man.
His name is Judd Bagley, and when the ban came down, he hadn't edited Wikipedia in over a year. He was merely writing about the site, from his own domain. The Wikipedia elite blacklisted Judd Bagley because he accused them of using their powers to hijack reality.
His first attempt at this was ill-advised. Using a Wikipedia account called WordBomb, he posted a reference to a lawsuit brought against Weiss. "On July 7, 2006, I decided to alert the Wikipedia community to Weiss's activities," Bagley says. "I did this by adding some true but unflattering details to the Gary Weiss article, expecting Mantanmoreland to object and escalate the matter to the official Wikipedia dispute resolution process, resulting in Mantanmoreland's banning from Wikipedia."
A few minutes later, he got the ping. But according to Bagley, it didn't come from SlimVirgin. According to Bagley, it came from Weiss. "All I wanted was to know SlimVirgin has opened my files," Bagley says. "Well, it did get opened, but it was opened by Weiss."
"That's the day I knew something rotten was afoot at Wikipedia," Bagley says. He quit trying to edit the encyclopedia, but he spent the next year collecting additional evidence against Weiss and Wikipedia and posting it to a new site called AntiSocialMedia.net.
j=New York Times m=November 18 y=2007 r=20071207 23:31 UTC kw=open
Greatest misconception about Wikipedia: We aren’t democratic. Our readers edit the entries, but we’re actually quite snobby. The core community appreciates when someone is knowledgeable, and thinks some people are idiots and shouldn’t be writing.
Collections: I collect books, and not only that, I do something unbelievably geeky with them, which is, I put little labels on the spines with Library of Congress numbers, and keep all the books in Library of Congress order. Oddly, I have never computerized the collection.
The fundraiser (since Oct 22)
Dec 4: secret mailing lists nonsense published
Dec 14: Carolyn Doran business became public knowledge in the Wikimedia community thanks to a story by The Register
Dec 17: Erik’s resignation from the WMF Board announced by Florence
Dec 18: Erik’s position as deputy director of WMF announced by Sue
Dec 21: Jimmy complains about foundation-l being a “sewer”
Florence has an explosive week and posts several long emails on transparency, board formation/elections, reviving the wikicouncil, “10 wishes for 2008”.
Jan 9: Rather bizarrely, a story appears on Wikinews called Wikimedia leak: Will the Foundation ‘run on Sun’? .
Jan 9: bunch of threads about leaks.
or=wikien-l m=August 16 y=2005 r=20050816 kw=other
I think this is a great word to describe the phenomenon we are talking about. It's very easy to stereotype such people as being trolls or deliberate troublemakers, but it's hard to reconcile that with the amount of good work they also do.
or=wikien-l m=August 15 y=2005 r=20050815 kw=other
I've dealt with mentally ill and developmentally disabled people for many years. It can be very difficult, and over time, it can seem to become even more so. These suggestions seem obvious, but they are what works for me.
or=wikien-l m=August 18 y=2005 r=20050818 kw=other
Still, some people just can't be reasoned with. Some people will object to any site on the internet that isn't dedicated to our Lord and Savior. Others will be disgusted that we fairly consider perspectives on intelligent design, and write us off as hacks. That these people will boycott Wikipedia, I think, is unfortunate, but not something we need to be concerning ourselves with.
or=wikien-l m=August 19 y=2005 r=20050819 kw=other
Im sure there are ways, but keep in mind that some of these issues are of course systemic rather than of the individual. Using a conceptualized notion of a "brittle user" at all carries some baggage of beurocratic prejudice. Any institution which begins down the slippery slope of referring to people in generalities rather than dealing with individuals, has become a beaurocracy.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060613 16:03 UTC kw=people
with ^ and talked about categories, lists, manual of style for descriptions of fictional characters (in/out universe)
or=wikien-l m=September 20 y=2005 r=20050920 kw=philosophy
Somewhat related to this, I have to say I question the value of quite a few of the portals that have been created. I imagined that portals were supposed to be pretty high level and aimed at general readers, but a lot now seem to be aimed mainly at fans of games and TV programs, or are so narrow that I can't see what a portal provides that an article doesn't. Examples of the former are portals for Doctor Who, Final Fantasy, James Bond, Oz, Stargate, the Simpsons and Warcraft, while for the latter there's Ancient Germanic culture, Eastern Christianity, Scientific Method, Utah and Bucharest.
or=wikien-l m=September 20 y=2005 r=20050920 kw=philosophy
On the contrary. I thought the entire intention of portals was to provide a comprehensive overview (I don't think that's an oxymoron) of a certain area. I think an astronomy portal would be excellent. There should be the possibility of a good article every month to feature. I guess some of the wikiprojects are too narrow: they should combine to form the portal. If there is enough coverage to keep a portal going, we should have a portal.
or=wikien-l m=September 22 y=2005 r=20050922 kw=philosophy
thresholds for how copyright should be treated for uploaded images
Under deletion policy, the rule is "if in doubt, don't delete." The copyright policy should adopt the reverse approach. Wikipedia is known for the quality of its product. Let's not ever risk it being known as a purloiner of other people's hard work.
or=wikien-l m=October 14 y=2005 r=20051014 kw=philosophy
A young student - perhaps in high school - by happenstance hears a lecture on physics. He grasps only a little of it, but what he understands seems exciting. One thing mentioned as very interesting by the lecturer is the "Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle." In a fit of exitement, he goes home and checks Wikipedia to understand this concept.
or=wikien-l m=October 15 y=2005 r=20051015 kw=philosophy
There's room for both. Since wiki is not paper (as we are so often told) there is plenty of room for general articles on general subjects, and specific articles on specific subjects. As a reader, I would probably expect (and want) to find the most general information first, and have the option of looking at specific information if I should so desire. Confronting readers with all available information at once just gets confusing.
or=wikien-l m=October 28 y=2005 r=20051028 kw=philosophy
The continuing arguments around VfD/AfD suggests that some of the community does not understand -- or believe -- that there is a goal to this project, a place where our Wiki will eventually end. I suspect that FF has found another end point to our Wiki.
response
or=wikien-l m=October 28 y=2005 r=20051028 kw=philosophy
Britannica has been editing and rewriting and adding to their encyclopedia for two hundred and thirty-seven years now, with no sign that they're planning to stop changing stuff and publish the "Final Encyclopedia" any time soon. Why do you think Wikipedia is likely to start reaching an "endpoint" any time in the forseeable future? I think a version-rating method is probably vital in the near future to prevent our best articles from backsliding, we've become good enough in many areas that IMO this is a real concern. But we're nowhere near "done," and since the corpus of human knowledge is itself constantly changing I doubt we ever will be.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=philosophy
Association of Wikipedians Who Dislike Making Broad Judgements About the Worthiness of a General Category of Article, and Who Are In Favor of the Deletion of Some Particularly Bad Articles, but That Doesn't Mean They are Deletionist
or=wikien-l m=December 12 y=2005 r=20051212 kw=philosophy
If "encyclopedia" means a compendium of all knowledge (which is what I think Diderot and D'Alembert and EB were shooting for), then no encyclopedia has ever existed. EB is itself partial and limited, which is why it goes through different editions. In fact, that a print encyclopedia goes through additions, or produces annexes periodically, shows that they too are "works in progress." If I have the Fifth Edition of the Columbia encyclopedia, does that mean the first edition was not really an encyclopedia? All so-called encyclopedias are projects of people striving to write an encyclopedia. The work can never be finished.
or=wikien-l m=February 18 y=2006 r=20060218 kw=philosophy
userbox free speech continues
Stop worrying about userboxes and write an encyclopedia already. If and when userboxes interfere with encyclopedia-writing activities, react in an appropriately minimalist fashion and proceed with the encyclopedia-writing.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=philosophy
Wikipedia is not therapy. If a user has behavior problems which result in disruption of the collective work of creating a useful reference, then their participation in Wikipedia may be restricted or banned entirely. This should not be done without patiently discussing any problems with the user, but if the behavior is not controlled, ultimately the project will be protected by restricting the user's participation in the project.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=philosophy
An "Exo-Wikipedian" or "Exopedian" is a user that largely focuses on the encyclopedic side of Wikipedia (articles and related content) rather than the social and institutional side of the project.
Their counterparts are known as "Metapedians".
or=wikien-l m=June 03 y=2006 r=20060603 kw=philosophy
Joe Anderson wrote: > However, four different viewpoints of the Wikipedia have emerged recently: > > - It is an encyclopedia with a community > - It is a community with an encyclopedia > - It is an encyclopedia > - It is a community > > I agree with the first, though many users agree with the second and some the > third and fourth.
Users who express the second or fourth views need to be pointed to [[WP:NOT]]. Users who express the third view need to be gently reminded of the value of collaboration and consensus.
or=wikien-l m=July 19 y=2006 r=20060719 kw=philosophy
I really want to encourage a much stronger culture which says: it is better to have no information, than to have information like this, with no sources. Any editor who removes such things, and refuses to allow it back without an actual and appropriate source, should be the recipient of a barnstar.
j=Slashdot m=January 15 y=2006 r=20060115 kw=plagiarism
The story of a journalist been fired from his job for plagiarizing text from the Wikipedia.
Tim Ryan, a 21 year veteran entertainment columnist for the Honolulu Star Bulletin, was fired yesterday after an investigation revealed multiple instances of his incorporating unattributed paragraphs from other sources. This case is unique in that it was first revealed by Wikipedia after an attentive Wikipedia editor noted similarities between a Wikipedia article and one of Ryan's columns. However he wasn't fired until after other news outlets started to run the story. Sadly, though the Star-Bulletin has admitted to the plagiarism, they failed to publicly acknowledge that Wikipedia was responsible for bringing this situation to light.
j=The Register m=October 03 y=2007 r=20071004 20:56 UTC kw=plagiarism
But when his obituaries appeared yesterday, there was an odd addition to Hazlehurst's canon. Apparently he had emerged from retirement a few years ago to co-write the song 'Reach', a hit for Simon "Spice Girls" Fuller's creation S Club 7.
Step forward BBC News, the Grauniad 2.0, the Independent, the Times, The Stage and Reuters - who all cut and pasted the phoney factoid from Wikipedia without a second thought. The Times' obituary writer professed to be surprised by Ronnie's late-career comeback - but not so surprised he felt the need to check.
Hats off to the Telegraph, however, for not supping from the poison cup of Web 2.0.
or=wikien-l m=February 09 y=2006 r=20060209 kw=policies
no opions on user page either, just facts about oneself
This is an excellent point that deserves repeating somewhere. Starting an argument on your userpage is wrong because it can't be rebutted. Therefore you shouldn't have anything on your userpage which constitutes a starting point for an argument. "I am a Catholic" satisfies that, but "George Bush is dumb" doesn't.
or=wikien-l m=June 16 y=2006 r=20060616 kw=policies
the glut of new policies
Once we were worried about the newbie contingent getting so large that new users were in fact starting to consider themselves old hands and influencing Wikipedia (see: CVU admins, userbox fiasco). It's gone beyond that, now: these days, the newbies are offering *advice* to more clueful users, and expecting it to be taken.
j=Halfpixel.com m=Feburary 15 y=2007 r=20070306 14:50 UTC kw=policy
There’s been a little bit of a furor over Wikipedia and its inclusion policies for webcomics. It’s happened before; the most recent round of anger at Wikipedia’s confused methodologies started when Brad Guigar’s Evil Inc was put up to a vote for deletion, then spared, then re-deleted without a new vote, then re-spared by the Wikipedia gods. Next on the non-notable chopping block was Paul Southworth’s Ugly Hill. Paul took it personally and decided to link Ugly Hill’s Article for Deletion at his site, which of course resulted in upset fans supporting the strip’s inclusion.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070316 20:41 UTC kw=policy kw=policy
The Wikipedia ban is a formal revocation of editing privileges on all or part of Wikipedia. A ban may be temporary and of fixed duration, or indefinite and potentially permanent. The standard invitation Wikipedia extends to "edit this page" does not apply to banned users.
Users are banned as an end result of the dispute resolution process, in response to serious cases of user misconduct.
Bans should not be confused with blocking, a technical mechanism used to prevent an account or IP address from editing Wikipedia. While blocks are one mechanism used to enforce bans, they are most frequently used to deal with vandalism and violations of the three-revert rule. Blocks are not the only mechanism used to enforce bans. A ban is a social construct and does not, in itself, physically prevent the user from editing any page.
The Wikipedia community can ban, if there is consensus, as can the arbitration committee, a delegate of the arbitration committee, Jimbo Wales, or the Wikimedia Foundation
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070316 20:44 UTC kw=policy
Blocking is how administrators prevent a user account or IP address/range from editing Wikipedia. Blocks are used to prevent damage or disruption to Wikipedia and should not be used as a punitive measure. Block duration varies by situation, and a block may be lifted if the editor agrees to stop the damaging behavior.
or=wikien-l m=April 01 y=2007 r=20070401 kw=policy
Disabling article creation for anonymous users was supposed to be "just an experiment" too and it's still in place over a year later despite no analysis ever being done. I can understand people being concerned about this experiment winding up the same way.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=power
A typical example: someone creates a vanity bio in Wikipedia, which is quickly nominated for deletion. The comments which ensue, even when they are completely courteous, can hurt the feelings of the person being discussed. The sort of person who is vain enough to create an autobiography in Wikipedia is also the sort of person who doesn't take well to being described as 'non-notable'.
When such people call the office, it can be the best approach all around for us to simply speedy the article, blank the deletion discussion, and all get on with our lives. This quick action is in no way meant to override or replace the process of community consensus. There is still plenty of time, and there are still plenty of places, for the community to discuss and replace articles in due course.
I have created this page for Danny (Danny is a longtime Wikipedian who is an admin in English Wikipedia, and globally a steward. He works for the foundation, primarily as my assistant, but increasingly in working on grant applications.) to use to signify why he is deleting or blanking something per my authorization. This does not signify any authoritarian top-down action without approval, but rather signifies a temporary action to allow us to be kind while we sort out the encyclopedic way forward.
or=wikien-l m=March 11 y=2006 r=20060311 kw=power
Having read through these long posts, I thought I would introduce myself for those who do not know me, and tell you a little bit about what I do. My name is Danny Wool. I am 42 years old. I am one of two and a half employees of the Foundation--the others are Brion, who deals with hardware and software issues, and Monica, an intern, who assists me in the office. ... Of that, at least one-third of my time is spent answering phone calls, between six and ten an hour. People who are involved in OTRS (the system by which the Foundation responds to email complaints) will have some idea of the kind of phone calls I receive. It is really a mixed bag, and some of them are quite funny. They include people trying to contact celebrities (no, I do not have Vana White's home phone number), to people mistaking us for various companies (no, we cannot supply a new carburetor for your Ford Pinto in Swaziland), to people asking for advice (no, I do not know how you can get the coyotes out of your backyard), to "eccentrics" (no, I do not know what God meant when he spoke to you this morning)--all of these are real phone calls--to press (lots and lots and lots of those).
or=wikien-l m=March 12 y=2006 r=20060312 kw=power
Here are the main points I want to empahasize:
1. This policy merely extends longstanding practice, previously not questioned, becuase I did it myself.
2. Nothing about this policy changes anything about our NPOV policies for any article in Wikipedia. WP:OFFICE in no way implies that some articles or some people are given any special treatment in the handling of their biography.
3. WP:OFFICE is intended to be used only temporarily as a courtesy in certain highly delimited circumstances. In some cases, this will be cases involving a threat of legal action, but in other cases it may be simply as a courtesy while we sort something out.
4. In all cases, we will communicate the maximum possible information in the shortest possible time period, subject to legal constraints and also time constraints.
5. Danny has, in my own opinion, formed in long experience, excellent judgment.
6. In some cases so far, WP:OFFICE was used for a longer period than I would have liked, due to various circumstances. I'm sorry about that. However, I remind everyone that Assume Good Faith is absolutely important to our community.
I am frankly shocked and saddened to see some of the accusations I have seen in this thread, but it is always and everywhere my intention to respond with kindness even to the most dishonest provocation, and I'm sorry I was snippy in some of my responses.
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2006 r=20060419 kw=power
many contributions
circumstances
I apologize if this action was perceived as "reckless", but I must emphasize that I was acting in good faith, and that I would much appreciate it if all office actions would be labeled as such. I was under the impression that this was the case given past actions. In any case, I think that the indefinite block and desysopping is very much an overreaction, and would like to hereby publicly appeal to Danny, the community and the Board (since Danny's authority is above the ArbCom) to restore my editing privileges as well as my sysop status. I pledge to be more careful in these matters in the future.
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2006 r=20060419 kw=power
Forgive me if I haven't understood this correctly, but: OFFICE actions are \ unreversible on pain of dire consequences (e.g. desysopping and indefinite banning), \ yet anything that Danny does could be an OFFICE action even though not identified as \ such? This seems very problematic; is there now a class of editor (Danny) whose \ actions noone can now dare risk undoing in case the action turns out to be an OFFICE \ action? Surely not.
or=wikien-l m=April 20 y=2006 r=20060420 kw=power
Most of us who see problems complain to Jimbo directly and at great length on the mailing lists. We may even create a fork. What we don't do is make up a bunch of scurrilous accusations, for example, bogus accusations that we are friendly to pedophiles, and promote them in the external media.
Results vary when you complain, some problems are dealt with, some work themselves out, some are ignored, but I have never seen a vengeful or paranoid attitude from our central leadership.
or=wikien-l m=April 20 y=2006 r=20060420 kw=power
Using the {{office}} template to tag problem content is a nice idea, but, I would imagine, has a rather serious drawback: Wikitruth.info (amongst other 'helpful' critics) seems to have a sysop working for them. Were we to flag an article that was libellous with {{office}}, you can bet that they would go and dig out the deleted sections, and repost it to their wonderful service. Now Wikimedia has been informed that they are likely to be sued, and in response has done something knowing that it would increase the publication and spread of this libel. - we're then liable for their reposting of the content, and "utterly screwed". I know, I know, "that's not what was intended". Well, tough, that's the way the Real World(tm) works.
or=wikien-l m=April 20 y=2006 r=20060420 kw=power
This is nonsense and it lies at the heart of all this trouble. The first person to undo the original admin action has started the wheel war, and it's that first undoing that shouldn't be happening (except where the original admin can't be contacted and it has to be done quickly). But as a rule, we shouldn't be undoing each other's admin actions at all.
or=foundation-l m=April 19 y=2006 r=20060419 kw=power
I also believe that the misunderstanding, although in good faith, still presented a risk to the Foundation.
The WP:OFFICE policy is still in its infancy. People will challenge it through their words and actions. Everyone is entitled to his or her opinion. But I believe everyone who believes in the future success and sustainability of the project must also recognize the need for judicious use of confidentiality at the Foundation level. The Foundation officers and Board members have a fiduciary obligation to the organization, as I do as a lawyer for my client.
Certain members of the community (and notably, not Mr. Moeller) have expressed dissatisfaction about WP:OFFICE and its use. There is a healthy debate yet to be had about it. We can have that debate, but I also have to make clear that the Foundation's obligations are greater than loyalty to any one user. Even someone with the history of contributions to Mr. Moeller.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060411 14:19 UTC kw=power
In summary, while Ed Poor acted as mediator, he failed to maintain any neutrality as soon as SlimVirgin entered the article. He engaged in the debate, took sides, ignored series of reckless edits by SlimVirgin on a controversial article in mediation (with no history on the article by SlimVirgin), gave warnings to editors who posted valid criticisms of the factual and NPOV errors of SlimVirgin's edits, at SlimVirgin's request, he misused administrative priveledges to lock me out of my talk page for non-existent NPA violations in my /block directory, initially gave hesitant endorsement of my RfC against SlimVirgin then turned around and attacked the RfC and those who filed it, then attacked me directly under the pretense of "making a point". All this while being the mediator assigned to the Terri Schiavo article.
Since then, Ed completely ignored efforts to mediate the dispute between us. When I posted results of mediation, he started axe-grinding, telling Jayjg that I was attacking SlimVirgin, and Ed took sudden interest in the RfC against me, and tells me he's "got enough pull" around here to get me banned.
Then, when SlimVirgin and I get involved in a content dispute on the Animal rights page, SlimVirgin informs Ed Poor that I'm "attacking" her. That same day, Ed misuses admin priveledges and blocks me for NPA violations when no such violations exist. Ed then takes another sudden interest in the RfC against me, and declares that I should be a permanent ban for misquoting him, yet when SlimVirgin completely fabricated a quotation from me several months prior, he made no such demand then.
Ed Poor has shown a complete lack of neutrality while acting as mediator on the Terri Schiavo article. He has misused his admin priveledges twice now, blocking me for non-existent NPA violations, both times at SlimVirgin's direct request. He is now stating I should be banned for something that SlimVirgin did to me months ago, and thretening that he has the "pull" to get me banned.
or=Digital Universe Foundation m=July 31 y=2006
An argument that knowledge is political in so far as there is power in "what gets the past is knowledge." Consequently, among the governance models of anarchy, aristocracy, dictatorship, and pure democracy, the constitutional representative democracy should be tried. Yet the author doesn't explain how this might be done.
I. Wikipedia as the locus of an interesting partisan debate
II. What the debate is about
a. Fundamentally, it's about control of what passes for knowledge
1 (Our best guess at that is: “knowledge is justified true belief, plus something to take care of the Gettier problem.”)
b. More specifically, three questions
c. "Presumed knowledge" (or "what passes for knowledge") explained
d. What in general ought to pass for knowledge? This reduces to a procedural question: how should we decide what passes for knowledge?
e. The politics of knowledge is about this procedural question writ large: how should we, as a society, decide what should pass for knowledge?
f. And this comes down to a question of who: who is to be trusted as the formulators of presumed knowledge?
g. Wikipedia and other projects raise the question what role the public should have as formulators of presumed knowledge
III. Why the debate over the politics of knowledge is heating up now
2 Jay Rosen aptly described this community as "the people formerly known as the audience."
i. The Creative Public is becoming self-aware
ii. The Creative Public can "vote with their feet" and thereby together decide what collaborative projects should exist
iii. The decision to participate in a project is a declaration of support for the kind of online governance the project has
i. Radical egalitarianism is built into the governance models of many collaborative projects
ii. This not only sets up online resources that compete with the old expert-driven resources, it helps ensure that experts will be excluded from the online resources.
IV. Toward online Republics
a. As a member of the Creative Public, you can "vote with your feet" for a variety of systems
b. There are well-understood problems inherent in anarchy, aristocracy, dictatorship, and pure democracy. Constitutional representative democracy is curiously untried.
Anarchy: no governance. People manage themselves and resolve disputes on a piecemeal basis, or not, perhaps with the help of people both parties agree on. All behavior in the system is unforced and voluntary, except when it’s not. Of course, the problem with anarchism, online and off, is that it never works the way the anarchists want it to. Anarchy will always resolve into something else, at the very least mob rule, as people begin to rally around charismatic or powerful figures.
Aristocracy: the rule of “the best,” of a few people supposedly in power due to their intelligence and ability. That of course is only the PR material. Indistinguishable from oligarchy, the rule of a few people of highly questionable intelligence or ability, and whose main concern is to protect and enhance their own slices of power.
Dictatorship: the rule by a bureaucracy of lackies who compete viciously for the favor of a single very powerful person, who oftentimes is bothered only to make vain, self-serving decisions, otherwise doing little of importance, leaving the rest up to his brutal and incompetent yes-men.
Pure democracy: one person, one vote, and everyone votes on all political matters. The problem, of course, is that it is completely unworkable except on a very small scale. Democracies are always in need of representatives and bureaucracies, to do the actual work of governing that the average citizen has almost no time to do. Thus, they tend to morph into something else–representative democracy, for instance, or anarchical mob rule, or dictatorship.
Constitutional representative democracy: the rule of elected representatives according to a set of rules that no one can easily change. Requires the rule of law, and therefore a people inclined to respect laws, as well as an uncorrupted judiciary that fairly interprets the laws. Offline, generally regarded in the West as the only just system of government; online, curiously, for the most part unknown and untried.
c. To decide on one of these systems is to decide who determines what should pass for knowledge or reliable information
If you choose anarchy, you are essentially declaring that no one should be in a position to declare what is known, or that a piece of information is reliable. Cf., in one aspect, Wikipedia; or at any rate, AntiWikipedia.
If you choose aristocracy, you place your trust in the hands of a group of people who have appointed themselves the arbiters of truth or reliable information; they are not ultimately accountable to the rank-and-file contributors, to the general public, or otherwise to anyone but themselves. Cf. the ODP or Slashdot.
If you choose dictatorship, you place your trust in an unaccountable dictator or (mostly) his lackies to make correct decisions on questions of truth and reliability. Cf., in another aspect, Wikipedia (okay, maybe that’s a little harsh; sure, it’s complicated, but remember that we are talking about who ultimately wields authority to decide conflicts).
If you choose pure democracy, you hold the silly hope that the system will not quickly morph into something other than a democracy, thus potentially depriving you of your small piece of authority in the project; you no doubt hold the view that there is no such thing as truth or reliable information apart from whatever the latest poll indicates. Cf. Digg, Kuro5hin, HotOrNot, or any one of a zillion “voting”-based websites.
If you choose constitutional representative democracy, then you have at least left room for the possibility that there is a truth independent of opinion, individual or collective; and you no doubt want your representatives constitutionally tasked and unusually capable of doing their job, i.e., you want experts. Cf. the Digital Universe (once it evolves out of its betahood, anyway; it does have a draft charter).
d. It's bizarre that more people aren't supporting online Republics
e. The requirements of online Republics, explained
f. Only a constitutional Republic (1) rewards the participation of the Creative Public with authority in the project, (2) prevents that authority from being removed by others, and (3) creates a framework in which experts may operate fairly, without being able to abuse their authority
V. The role of experts in online Republics
a. The burden is surely on those who believe that the arguments for offline republics do not apply to online governance
b. But I still need to defend my commitment to expertise
c. Leadership--not to say top-down orders, of course--must rest in the hands of experts, however, because they are, by definition, the people who have made it their lives' work to know stuff about their areas of expertise
d. In collaborative projects, it is not individuals but rather the collective that has influence; but a collective made up of the Creative Public is not the best source of intellectual authority
e. But agreeing with that does not require giving up all influence: in a Republic, the Creative Public still holds the cards.
or=Wikimedia m=November 1 y=2001 r=20060811 18:44 UTC kw=power
I need to be granted fairly broad authority by the community--by you, dear reader--if I am going to do my job effectively. Until fairly recently, I was granted such authority by Wikipedians. I was indeed not infrequently called to justify decisions I made, but not constantly and nearly always respectfully and helpfully. This place in the community did not make me an all-powerful editor who must be obeyed on pain of ousting; but it did make me a leader. That's what I want, again. This is my job.
or=Wikimedia m=November 12 y=2001 r=20060811 18:44 UTC kw=power
But when push comes to shove, if a decision must be made and there's a serious controversy, and I'm partaking of it, sorry, but I'm going to get my way. And you'll be expected to hold your tongue after that. Bear in mind that I am going to listen to you, I have the best interests of Wikipedia at heart, and I am almost never going to contradict a majority. --LMS
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2007 r=20070419 kw=power
If this isn't an OFFICE action, and it isn't a Foundation action, can you say what it is? Your unblock would have been overturned by now (within minutes, in fact) if you'd been an ordinary admin. If you're acting here as an ordinary admin, and given the amount of opposition there is to what you've done, if your unblock is overturned, will you desysop the admin who overturns it?
or=wikien-l m=April 19 y=2007 r=20070419 kw=power
No, you are mistaken. I have a traditional role under the long standing community rules of English Wikipedia which does not flow from WP:OFFICE (which became a policy when I delegated some traditional powers to the office) nor from the foundation, but from convention within the community.
or=wikien-l m=January 11 y=2008 r=20080111 kw=power
Perhaps. Personally, I'm just concerned about the apparent existence of a double standard. If developers (or other lone users) can change things at will but the general Wikipedia community needs to establish "consensus" to change them back, naturally there's going to be a strong imbalance of influence there since consensus is often hard to achieve.
or=wikien-l m=October 01 y=2005 r=20051001 kw=quality
I think far, far too much attention gets paid to the worst articles on Wikipedia - the studs, the vanity articles, the stuff of debatable notability (schools!!) while not nearly enough effort goes into making crappy articles into good ones.
or=wikien-l m=October 07 y=2005 r=20051007 kw=quality
Right. And here I am complaining about bad writing. :-) No, what I mean is, I will never accept that we should use freeness as an excuse for sucking. We want to be free *and* better than Britannnica.
or=wikien-l m=October 07 y=2005 r=20051007 kw=quality
I agree we need good writing, but I think trying to coerce everyone into some common "Wikipedia house writing style" is not going to work, even if we could agree on what it should be (which is not possible). Some people think many of our articles are too chatty and informal, and would prefer we adopt a tone more like an academic work. Others think we're already too academic and should go more for a popular-press type of tone. I like the variety of writing styles myself.
or=wikien-l m=October 10 y=2005 r=20051010 kw=quality
The problem is that people come along and make incremental changes each of which, taken alone, is unremarkable -- neither helpful nor especially detrimental to the article. In aggregate, such changes destroy the organization of the article and compromise any stylistic unity that may be present.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=quality
Each week, Wikipedians nominate an article to become the collaboration of the week. The aim is to produce featured-standard articles, through widespread cooperative editing. This project aims to fill holes in Wikipedia, so only non-existent articles, or stubs may be nominated.
or=wikien-l m=October 19 y=2005 r=20051019 kw=quality
Let's not confuse means with ends. Our GOAL is to write an encyclopedia. It shall consist of many articles which refer to each other (often by [[links like this]]). These articles describe the world outside of Wikipedia and rely on sources such as common knowledge, expert scholars, and frequently just "your average joe who happens to know something".
j=Rough Type m=October 18 y=2005 r=20051024 kw=quality
Here, then, is what I'll propose as the Law of the Wiki: Output quality declines as the number of contributors increases.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=quality
Here's my totally unscientific investigation into the quality of our work: twenty consecutive pages retrieved using the randompage link.
j=Nature m=December 15 y=2005 r=20051215 kw=quality
Only eight serious errors, such as misinterpretations of important concepts, were detected in the pairs of articles reviewed, four from each encyclopaedia. But reviewers also found many factual errors, omissions or misleading statements: 162 and 123 in Wikipedia and Britannica, respectively.
Several Nature reviewers agreed with Panelas' point on readability, commenting that the Wikipedia article they reviewed was poorly structured and confusing. This criticism is common among information scientists, who also point to other problems with article quality, such as undue prominence given to controversial scientific theories. But Michael Twidale, an information scientist at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, says that Wikipedia's strongest suit is the speed at which it can updated, a factor not considered by Nature's reviewers.
As well as comparing the two encyclopaedias, Nature surveyed more than 1,000 Nature authors and found that although more than 70% had heard of Wikipedia and 17% of those consulted it on a weekly basis, less than 10% help to update it.
or=wikien-l m=January 30 y=2006 r=20060130 kw=quality
But notably: More than half the articles were stubs. Hardly any articles had any real "references". Most of the external links were band websites, company websites etc. Of the few refernces, one was blatantly false and a few were "bad". So it's probably a little early to be claiming that all material added to Wikipedia MUST be sourced or it will be removed. Because based on this, only around 15% of Wikipedia would survive. (Which is more than I would have predicted).
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=quality
Jimbo interview
JW: I don't know. My favorite answer to this is to say, the real question is: where will the world be after 10 more years of Wikipedia. :) Seriously, I think we'll eventually see a tapering off of new article creation in the large language wikipedias as more and more "verifiable" topics are covered. At this point, most changes will be expansions and updates and quality improvements to existing articles. But in 10 years, it seems likely to me that many languages which are now quite small will have very large Wikipedia projects. Our community will continue to become more diverse as more and more people worldwide come online.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=quality
This page lists requests for peer review to expose articles to closer scrutiny than they might otherwise receive. It is intended for high-quality articles that have already undergone extensive work.
or=wikien-l m=March 17 y=2006 r=20060317 kw=quality
Although this solution is aimed more generally at sites using Wikimedia software, this is something I believe Ray has been talking with Jimbo about. I happened to be present when Ray presented this the other night, & a known expert suggested an excellent way to grab some of the data needed without causing a strain on the servers.
or=wikien-l m=March 22 y=2006 r=20060322 kw=quality
The WP fixed all errors before EB posted a press release
It might be interesting to invite Nature to do a new comparison -- this time of our response to their article [1] with Britannica's [2]...
or=wikien-l m=March 23 y=2006 r=20060323 kw=quality
This has already been suggested, but we should invite EB to organise another study, to be conducted by a journal of their choice. Perhaps they can even contribute to the method (multiple reviewers for each comparison would be a good inclusion), on the condition that the results of the study are published at the same time as the list of errors. Then we can fix them within days, just like with the Nature review, and put that fact out in a press release.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060331 23:03 UTC kw=quality
About 0.1% of Wikipedia articles are featured articles, which have been thoroughly reviewed and designated as the very best of Wikipedia. However, there are also many articles containing excellent content but which are unlikely to become featured in their current state; so long as they meet certain quality standards, they may be listed as good articles.
Currently 867 articles are listed here as meeting the good article criteria: to be well written, factually accurate, use a neutral point of view, be stable, referenced, and wherever possible, contain appropriately tagged images to illustrate the topic. Good articles may not be as thorough and detailed as our featured articles, but should not omit any major facets of the topic.
j=apophenia m=April 19 y=2006 r=20060419 14:29 UTC kw=quality
Details the problems associated with subjects not been able to correct their own entries in deference to the mistaken mainstream stories because of the no original research policy
While the earlier profile felt weird, the current profile is downright problematic. There are little mistakes (examples: my name is capitalized; there is an extra 'l' in my middle name; i was born in 1977; my blog is called Apophenia). There are other mistakes because mainstream media wrote something inaccurate and Wikipedia is unable to correct it (examples: i was on Epix not Compuserv and my mother didn't have an account; i was not associated with the people at Friendster; i didn't take the name Boyd immediately after Mattas and it didn't happen right after my mother's divorce; i didn't transfer to MIT - i went to grad school at the MIT Media Lab; i'm not a cultural anthropologist). Then there are also disconcerting framing issues - apparently my notability rests on my presence in mainstream media and i'm a cultural anthropologist because it said so on TV. Good grief.
Why does mainstream media play such a significant role in the Wikipedia validation process? We know damn well that mainstream media is often wrong.
or=wikien-l m=May 16 y=2006 r=20060516 kw=quality
There seems to be a terrible bias among some editors that some sort of random speculative "I heard it somewhere" pseudo information is to be tagged with a "needs a cite" tag. Wrong. It should be removed, aggressively, unless it can be sourced. This is true of all information, but it is particularly true of negative information about living persons.
or=wikien-l m=March 31 y=2007 r=20070331 kw=quality
I found Kurt's comment there interesting: the German Wikipedia is apparently discussing a proposal to disable new article creation one week out of each month; this proposal is not faring well.
I suppose it is more fun to create than it is to maintain. Open source software has the same problem -- which is why there are hundreds of half-written IRC clients out there. The only way we got GIMP to 1.0 was to declare a "feature freeze" and to spend a couple of months doing nothing but killing bugs. Wikipedia needs to do essentially the same thing: stop adding new stuff until they get the old stuff organized, at least a bit more. Until they do, the bleeding will not stop.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070725 15:13 UTC kw=quality
An essay that argues Wikipedia's "do whatever" policy leads contributors away from creating high-quality articles, which, by why of Featured Article analysis, is produced by one, or a few, editors with the commitment and expertise necessary to rewrite an article so it is well organized and relevant to the topic.
responses
j=Citizendium Blog m=July 24 y=2007 kw=quality
Agrees with Britt's analysis but also notes that the wiki way permits one to easily correct small errors, and promotes motivation
or=wikien-l m=September 07 y=2007 r=20070907 kw=quality
I mean, hell: this is the one area where I'm actually an expert. I'm a technical writer. I've been to college for it. After slaving over assembly instructions, making sure that they're as clear as they absolutely, possibly could be, it's fun to help with a wikipedia article about something entertaining.
j=Why Give to Wikimedia? m=December 07 y=2007 r=20071207 15:47 UTC kw=quality
This week, people all over Germany are seeing the following magazine cover: Stern, a major German weekly, has reviewed 50 articles from various subject categories in the German Wikipedia and compared them to articles in a well-known traditional German language encyclopedia. Their conclusion, based on expert feedback: Wikipedia is actually significantly more accurate, comprehensive, complete and correct than the 15-volume paper encyclopedia it was compared to.
j=WikiAngela m=March 30 y=2007 r=20070330 13:06 UTC kw=spam
Even if most vandalism is done by unregistered users, I don’t see this as evidence that a wiki should force editors to register. Forced registration doesn’t prevent vandals logging in. The only difference such a rule would make is that you would then have 100% of vandalism made by registered users, which makes it much harder to spot. Vandal fighters can filter out edits by registered users when they look at recent changes, and anti-vandal bots can be programmed to watch for unregistered users. Removing that distinction only makes it harder to find vandalism - it doesn’t stop it happening. Vandals will sometimes log in if they have to. And genuine users sometimes won’t. I’m assuming vandals have more time to waste than the average Wikipedia reader, so there’s the danger that more vandals than normal people will have time to register, changing the balance of good users to bad.
j=Guardian Unlimited Technology m=March 25 y=2007 r=20070403 kw=spam
A journalistic review of vandalism, prominent vandals (e.g., Sneaky Stats, Willy on Wheels), and a vandal fighter (e.g., Teresa Knott).
or=wikien-l m=April 11 y=2007 r=20070411 kw=spam
It also can't be forgotten that the idea that Wikipedia is the encyclopaedia anyone can edit is a fundamental philosophical touchstone of the project, and that's why it's one of the [[m:foundation issues]].
or=Wikimedia-l m=October 29 y=2005 r=20051029 kw=speech
This site is named as Wiki China and is hosted from some chinese companies. They call themselve the first chinese wiki encyclopedia and had (machine) copied over tens of thousands of articles from the chinese Wikipedia site, without mentioning their source, and without any hint of GFDL. Most articles has stil the interwiki-links in them, natuarally without any other language provided from this site. Further more they have cencored most of the sensitive articles, which could probably be the reason of the blocking.
or=wikien-l m=January 18 y=2006 r=20060118 kw=speech
Interesting allegation. Supposedly the scenario is that some political extremist edited a Wikipedia page about the Center for Constitutional Rights so as to contain slanted editorial from a political website opposed to that organisation, then he or another person later read out on air, word for word, the contents of the resulting article, preceded by the words "This is according to the Wikipedia free encyclopedia on the Web. OK? I didn't make this up."
or=wikien-l m=February 20 y=2006 r=20060220 kw=speech
If that's what really happened, this is starting to really suck. I hate to sound like I'm siding with the userbox weenies (and I hate to use terms like "siding with" at all; factionalism is precisely what we're trying to *avoid* here), but I have to agree with the sentiment that this campaign against divisive userboxes is ending up being more divisive than the userboxes themselves. WP_IAR is one thing, but using it to quash dissenting voices in a retaliatory way (and especially when what the voices are dissenting against is a perception of that very kind of highhandedness) is a sure sign of incipient corruption, repression, and regression. We shouldn't be acting this way.
or=wikien-l m=April 04 y=2006 r=20060404 kw=speech
I think 'appropriate and tasteful' absolutely can be applied here. The differences in culture between Japan and the rest of the world are a valid topic for an encyclopedia article, and so the *subject* is one which we ought to cover, and some sort of *illustration* can certainly improve the article.
I think the best way to understand 'what justification' is to understand a certain sort of POV pushing... one of the goals of pedophiles is to make the case that such materials are perfectly normal and healthy and should be viewed as being completely routine. One way to achieve that goal is to be sure that such materials are published widely.
This alone is not an automatic argument against including the image, of course! Many images might be included in many articles by people who want to push a POV, but might also be accepted by virtually all editors as being important and relevant to the article.
And this is not an argument that anyone who wants to include this picture rather than another one is a pedophile POV pusher. Indeed, I think a part of the rhetorical trolling that goes on this way is to push people who are opposed to censorship to stand up for editorial nonsense by recasting a serious editorial debate as being merely about censorship or the alleged prudishness of (usually) Americans.
or=wikien-l m=April 03 y=2006 r=20060403 kw=speech
1) It is grossly inappropriate. It is a poor reflection on Wikipedia's goals and would serve our detractors. We wave "no censorship" around to justify outrageous images. This image is extremely harmful to Wikipedia's progression to build an encyclopaedia.
I have just deleted Image:Hikari Hayashibara Manga.jpg. It was an image of a young girl, her bottom exposed, holding a teddy bear with BDSM armcuffs and a strap-on dildo (not my description...).
This image bad in two main ways:
1) It is grossly inappropriate. It is a poor reflection on Wikipedia's goals and would serve our detractors. We wave "no censorship" around to justify outrageous images. This image is extremely harmful to Wikipedia's progression to build an encyclopaedia.
2) The fair use claim is extremely dubious. IANAL, but it seems generally accepted that there must be reference to the picture in the text to justify its inclusion. That is not present here. This image is harmful to Wikipedia's progression as a free encyclopaedia. It doesn't seem hard to fathom that this image has a huge potential to harm Wikipedia. We should, at this point, ask whether the image justifies this. Can the article be understood without the image? Undoubtedly yes. Can a determined reader find an example if the image is deleted? Undoubtedly yes. Does the benefit of including this picture, as opposed to any other lolicon pictures on Wikipedia, outweigh the potential it has to harm Wikipedia? Undoubtedly no.
The image deletion process has shown itself incapable of removing this image. The process is demonstrably broken when there is a hint of controversy. I don't take stepping outside accepted policy and process lightly. Here, however, it is absolutely right and absolutely necessary.
j=Slashdot m=May 12 y=2006 r=20060512 11:59 UTC kw=speech
Billosaur writes "New Scientist is reporting that Baidu, China's largest search engine, is launching its own version of Wikipedia. The site, Baidupedia, differs from the more well-known Wikipedia in that it is self-censoring." From the article: "Unlike Wikipedia, which allows anyone to create and modify entries, Baidupedia is censored by the company to avoid offending the Chinese government. Entries to the encyclopaedia must first pass a filtering system before being added to the site. Baidupedia bars users from including any 'malicious evaluation of the current national system', any 'attack on government institutions', and prevents the 'promotion of a dispirited or negative view of life'."
or=wikien-l m=May 17 y=2006 r=20060517 kw=speech
But, uh, guys... the People's Republic of China doesn't even respect the copyrights of major companies with big legal firms. Surely they won't give a more than a cursory damn at most about a bunch of copylefters. They may be Communists but they aren't Stallmanites. ;-)
j=The Observer m=September 10 y=2006 r=20060911 20:38 UTC kw=speech
General statements on the block from Jimbo relative to Amnesty International Irrepressible.info project
j=International Herald Tribune m=November 29 y=2006 r=20061129 22:41 UTC kw=speech
Switch to Wikipedia in Chinese, and one discovers a very different man. There, Mao Zedong's reputation is unsullied by any mention of a death toll in the great purges of the 1950s and 1960s, or for what many historians call the greatest famine in human history.
or=wikien-l m=January 30 y=2007 r=20070130 kw=speech
While I am a passionate advocate for free speech in the public sphere, Wikipedia is a private space dedicated to a specific goal. Allowing juvenile incivility, namecalling, racial slurs, etc. would be detrimental to that goal. It only makes sense to insulate as best we can productive contributors from moronic nonsense and harassment so they can continue to be productive contributors.
or=wikien-l m=June 05 y=2007 r=20070605 kw=speech
My understanding of what Wikipedia does at the core has always been pretty simple: We take factual material elsewhere and summarize it neutrally and clearly. I feel like the service we provide to readers is pretty simple: instead of making them dig through all the stuff out there on some topic just to get an overview, we do the first pass at that for them.
or=wikien-l m=September 27 y=2005 r=20050927 kw=privacy
some concern about how to handle onion ring anonymizing routers (TOR) as they could both help those living under censorious regimes as well as vandals
or=wikien-l m=January 19 y=2006 r=20060119 kw=privacy
His family does not wish his full name to be used, and many German newspapers refer to him as "Boris F." On 14 December 2005 the parents obtained a temporary restraining order in a Berlin court against Wikimedia Foundation Inc. because its freely editable online encyclopedia, Wikipedia, mentioned the full name in its German language version. The order prohibits the Foundation from mentioning the full name on any website under the domain "wikipedia.org". It furthermore requires the Foundation to name a representative in Germany within two weeks following the decision.
j=Spiegel Online m=January 20 y=2006 r=20060120 kw=privacy
Six years after his mysterious death -- which was officially ruled as suicide -- a major debate has broken out over "Tron's" privacy rights. Most German newspapers and Internet sites only include the initial of a person's last name when reporting court cases or murders -- unless the person is a public figure. The legal gray area in this case is whether or not the fact that more than 700 Google links, numerous media reports and books give Boris F.'s full last name makes him a public figure.
or=wikien-l m=February 23 y=2006 r=20060223 kw=privacy
I don't know anything about this case, but in general, I would say that a thoughtful approach to our astounding global power to hurt people deeply by having inappropriate articles on people who are not famous through any fault or merit of their own will may lead us to respectfully decline to have abusive articles about such people.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=privacy
Editors must take particular care with writing biographies of living persons, which require a degree of sensitivity as well as strict adherence to our content policies:
We must get the article right. Be very firm about high quality references — particularly about details of personal lives.
or=Wikimedia m=April 18 y=2006 r=20060418 21:22 UTC kw=privacy
The main changes are to these two paragraphs:
"IP addresses of users, derived either from those logs or from records in the database are frequently used to correlate usernames and network addresses of edits in investigating abuse of the wiki, including the suspected use of malicious "sockpuppets" (duplicate accounts), vandalism, harassment of other users, or disruption of the wiki."
"It is the policy of Wikimedia that personally identifiable data collected in the server logs, or through records in the database via the CheckUser feature, may be released by the system administrators or users with CheckUser access, in the following situations:"
I intend to propose that the Board accept the new draft as official policy, but would appreciate feedback or further improvements before then. Please comment on this list, or at
j=The Wikipedia Review m=May 9 y=2006 r=20060522 18:51 UTC kw=privacy
The identity of the Wikipedia contributors, graduate student, and author of horror/dark fiction is linked in order to threaten his Wikipedia and University status.
responses
j=The Wikipedia Review y=2006 m=May 10 r=20060522 18:51 UTC kw=privacy
The user formerly known as Snowspinner now edits Wikipedia under the username "Phil Sandifer", and the user page of Snowspinner is a redirect to the user page of Phil Sandifer, so this doesn't really count as "outing".
j=The Wikipedia Review y=2006 m=May 10 r=20060522 18:51 UTC kw=privacy
has now been deleted from the thread
QUOTE(everyking @ Tue 9th May 2006, 11:49pm) *
That's great. Thanks to Hushthis for finding that. "Terminal stupidity"...he's so obnoxious and egotistical he almost seems like a caricature. I remember him bragging about what a good arb he'd be based on the "bullshit detector" he'd developed from working with his students. What a guy. Someone should start sending copies of his WP cyber-bullying antics to other members of the faculty/administration there.
If I know anything about how grad school works, it wouldn't take much to put him in a position where he either decides to leave Wikipedia or decides that he doesn't need a Ph.D. after all.
j=BrightByte m=May 03 y=2007 r=20070503 13:16 UTC kw=privacy
Wikimedia has adopted a new policy for access to nonpublic data, which requires everyone with access to stuff like user's email or IP addresses to verify their identity with the Wikimedia Foundation, and prove that they are over 18, within 60 days. This includes stewards, people with checkuser or oversight rights, all OTRS volunteers, and people with direct access to the database.
or=wikien-l m=June 17 y=2007 r=20070617 kw=privacy
Some administrators are using a proxy to protect their own privacy, though this is counter to general policy. Should the exception be made for them, because they are good contributors, or should they be punished even more severely, since they should be exemplars.
Fred, is enforcing policy with the EXACT same standards to ALL members harassment? Why would we enforce to one degree vs. CharlotteWeb, a valued member of the community, but to a lesser degree vs. Jayjg or Slim Virgin.
or=wikien-l m=August 02 y=2007 r=20070802 kw=privacy
I am truly depressed by the lack of support SlimVirgin is receiving from certain individuals on this list, but at the same time, not surprised. Victim-blaming has a long and horrific history. When it happens to rape victims, it is called 'the second rape'... to victims of assault, 'the second assault'... or, to cover all situations, victim-blaming or secondary victimisation.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070907 13:34 UTC kw=privacy
WikiScanner (also known as Wikipedia Scanner) is a tool created by Virgil Griffith and released on August 14, 2007,[1] which consists of a publicly searchable database that links millions of anonymous Wikipedia edits to the organizations where those edits apparently originated, by cross-referencing the edits with data on the owners of the associated block of IP addresses. The Associated Press reported that Griffith wanted "to create minor public relations disasters for companies and organizations [he] dislike[s]."[2]
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=structure
A WikiProject is a collection of pages devoted to the management of a specific family of information within Wikipedia. It is not a place to write encyclopedia articles, but a resource to help coordinate and organize article writing. The attached talk pages are a convenient forum for those interested in a particular project. Projects can also have associated Wikiportals.
or=wikien-l m=December 07 y=2005 r=20051207 kw=structure
Reporters were asking me how the site works, leading to discussions of various small tweaks that might help make new pages patrolling easier, and I was asked when we might see some changes. I said something like "probably by Monday". The reporter took this to mean that this _particular_ change would be implemented on _Monday_, and ran it as an announcement.
j=Slashdot m=December 17 y=2005 r=20051217 kw=structure
Perhaps now we can get on with writting a free encylopedia rather than arguing about who has the ability to edit pages. I'm surpuised it took them so long to get to this point. If parallels are drawn to software development it would be like letting any Tom, Dick or Harry submit a patch to the kernel, and have it included automatically, regardless of whether it even compiled.
While it would be nice to live in a world where people didn't abuse things like wikipedia that just isn't going to happen. The problem is that a very small number of people can do a lot of damage in a short space of time when it's completely open. I wouldn't be shocked if they moved to a completely moderated system before long.
j=The Boston Globe m=December 16 y=2005 r=20051223 kw=structure
One step in the right direction is Wikipedia's decision to require all of its contributors to register with the site. Another would be to give better play to ''editors" who are willing to sign their work.
Rather than holding Wikipedia or other sites liable for the actions of the unruly masses, which could chill the vigorous, free exchange the Internet should be, websites need to find ways to be more accountable. Even the global village needs to police its town common.
or=Meatball m=April 14 y=2006 r=20060414 15:03 UTC kw=structure
Alternatively, as the community changes, new members come to feel they are representative of the community as a whole. However, as older contributors leave, the older community is no longer represented in the discussions (bad FairProcess). Due to WikiNow, though, their contributions remain vivid and current. Consequently, unless someone like the Founder sticks up for their positions, the community may violate the trust in which the older contributions were made. This should be important to the new contributors as it was the strength of the old contributions that drew them to the space in the first place.
Since only one or two people know about the older times, it is their words against the rest of the community. The first couple times this may be accepted or even considered valuable. As the community diverges from the original sentiments of the site, though, this tension becomes exacerbated, perhaps into a SeparationOfPositions?.
If there is no one to stick up for the older contributions, there may be less conflict for the short term, even if there have been ethical violations. The risk of a WikiMindWipe increases, though, if an older contributor returns to see his or her words abused. The older the contributions, the more central they may be to the structure of the community. This is dangerous to the community. But maybe not more so than having an albatross around its neck.
And yet sometimes the older values are better.
or=wikien-l m=May 19 y=2006 r=20060519 kw=structure
1. It seems that some very high profile articles like [[George W. Bush]] are destined to be semi-protected all the time or nearly all the time. I support continued occassional experimention by anyone who wants to take the responsibility of guarding it, but it seems likely to me that we will keep such articles semi-protected almost continuously.
or=[Foundation-l m=June 12 y=2006 r=20060619 kw=structure
Following a long discussion, both publicly and privately, the board of the foundation voted recently to hire an interim Executive Director and legal counsel. We offered the position to Brad Patrick, and he accepted. We have discussed at length the parameters of the position, including job responsibilities, and so on. (This has been posted and discussed publicly as well.)
The need for fulltime legal counsel should be obvious to everyone involved with the projects. We are increasingly approached with interesting opportunities to partner with various organizations in ways that are consistent with our community values and missions, and we really need fulltime legal support to make sure these deals are done in a way which is safe for the foundation. Additionally, of course there is an ever increasing burden as we grow more popular of legal complaints that we continue to try to deal with in a timely and effective manner.
or=wikien-l m=June 18 y=2006 r=20060618 kw=structure
it is no longer worth the headache trying to write quality articles or to improve articles in this ennvironment.
WP is a meeting ground for several types of people. the main types i've observed fall under these heads:
1. accurate reporters (AR's). 2. responsible scholars (RS's). 3. infantile vandals (IV's). 4. expert disrupters (ED's)
in the present state of WP, the rules in practice and the prevailing attitudes of admins are all skewed in favor of IV's and ED's, while the AR's and RS's don't stand a chance.
m=June 27 y=2006 r=20060619 19:31 UTC kw=structure
The board is considering adding some prominent person from outside the core Wikipedia community to the board and seeks brainstorming ideas of what type of person could be good, as well as mentions of names who we might want to approach.
or=wikien-l m=June 04 y=2006 r=20060604 kw=structure
from November to December, the number of "very active users" in en went from just over 2000 to just under 3000. That 50% jump included a fair number of people who were new to the process, and coincides with the start of some "old timer" versus "newcomer" cultural fights about things like userboxes.
or=wikien-l m=March 08 y=2007 r=20070308 kw=structure
It's kind of vague, really. Historically, the Arbitration Committee took over the roles Jimmy previously exercised. Informally, he currently heads it (from afar, mostly), and has authority to veto its decisions, appoint/remove members, etc. Even more informally, he does so in accordance with community approval (elections, the policy ratification vote, etc.). At one point Jimmy was also formally in charge, but now in hierarchical terms the Foundation's Board of Directors would be, with Jimmy retaining informal/customary authority over some English-Wikipedia-specific processes. Now that authority over the community is mostly effective because the community tacticly approves of it, so teasing out which has priority is tricky. =]
or=wikien-l m=October 08 y=2007 r=20071008 kw=structure
Gladwell's thesis is that although open source projects, which we can probably loosely define to include ourselves, bring together great expertise, but also create significant friction between the members of what we call "the community". If I could graph Gladwell's thesis and borrow some economic jargon, I'd say that there is some point on the curve where the marginal value of the cumulative benefits and disadvantages of expertise and friction is equal to zero. (Okay, I was trying to phrase this in a more simple way, but clearly I failed.)
or=wikien-l m=October 09 y=2007 r=20071009 kw=growth
As many of you are probably aware, the statistics package hosted at <a href="http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm">http://stats.wikimedia.org/EN/TablesWikipediaEN.htm</a> has not been updated in about a year due to the failure of all recent attempts to create a complete database dump for enwiki.
or=wikien-l m=November 29 y=2005 r=20051129 kw=tools
The projects could still use a good Wikicite project, to collage citation information about non-WP content... to provide that kind of comprehensive multi-format citation detail about every cite used in/by an article, and offer editors a place to comment on the citations (quality, reliability, disambiguation with better-known cites) themselves.
j=LibraryThing m=February 26 y=2007 r=20070228 15:46 UTC kw=tools
I've added a cool new feature, building on some work by library programmer Lars Aronsson—Wikipedia citations to all works pages. That is, work pages now list of all the Wikipedia articles that cite the work. The data is also available in feed form.
or=Wikimedia-l m=September 23 y=2005 r=20050923 kw=trolling
It _is_ of course important that issues like 'colour vs color' be thought about carefully. But inflammatory and patently false claims are likely to be taken as _trolling_ (deliberately trying to annoy people) rather than serious commentary.
j=Wikipedia Blog m=October 16 y=2007 r=20071016 22:08 UTC kw=universal
This Egypt choice is part of wikipedia's most important goal: uniting the world under a benevolent dogma of free knowledge. If "anyone can edit" is a radical thought in Washington, imagine what it sounds like in Beijing. (Well, you don't have to imagine; Wikipedia lost a protracted fight to seep through the Great Firewall.)
The globalist approach raises social issues, too -- for example, LGBT wikipedians (there are a lot of us) can't share Egyptian hotel rooms* (and will have to stomach a government that's friendly to all tourists, but routinely imprisons its own gay population). Jimmy Wales stemmed the outcry by promising a keynote about "free knowledge and human rights".
or=wikien-l m=December 04 y=2005 r=20051204 kw=verifiability
In what circumstances do we label or describe someone as criminal?
I responded to this user previously on the helpdesk. The issue is that David Hager was accused of marital rape by his former wife, who got an article published in The Nation about this, among other places. Thus the allegations, true or not, are documented and citable, and thus cannot be removed as unsourced attacks.
j=Star Tribune m=August 16 y=2006 r=20060831 13:33 UTC kw=verifiability
He's the latest politician to try to edit his online biography, and he, too, was detected by a volunteer editor.
if it is likely true, but needs specificity, you may use {{specify}}
if it is not doubtful, you may use {{fact}} or {{citequote}} tag to ask for better citation in order to make the article complete.
if it is doubtful but not too harmful to the whole article, you may use {{verify source}} tag to ask for source verification.
If it is doubtful and (quite) highly harmful, you may move it to the talk page and ask for a source.
If it is very doubtful and very harmful, you may remove it directly without the need of moving it to the talk page first.
or=wikien-l m=September 30 y=2006 r=20060930 kw=verifiability
I have posted this to foundation, but for those who do not know-- Today I deleted the article [[Porchesia]], which was created on November 23, 2005, i.e., 10 months ago. The article described an island off the coast of Lebanon with a population of over 300,000. The languages are Arabic, Greek, and English. I will gladly restore the article when someone finds me one source verifying the facts of this article. You might start by finding Porchesia on a map. Danny
or=wikien-l m=January 16 y=2007 r=20070116 kw=verifiability
Yet another deletion discussion where reliable sources are debated. I totally agree that creators of fictional material are not a reliable source for their own notability in 99.9% of the cases, but I also believe that for uncontroversial information like character information creators are a source far more superior than fansites (who speculate) and newspaper articles and interviews (who can misunderstand and misinterpret).
or=wikien-l m=March 01 y=2007 r=20070301 kw=verifiability
Hi Steve, the merge process started about four months ago. It was a simple merge with no changes, and the list was informed. The aim was to get the two policies on one page, tighten the writing a little, and get rid of the word "verifiability." This was causing confusion for new editors because they thought it meant they had to check that material was true, which is what "verify" usually means, rather than simply checking that it had been published elsewhere.
or=Wikimedia y=2007 r=20070301 15:45 UTC kw=verifiability kw=verifiability
A collapse of V and NOR
This page in a nutshell: All material in Wikipedia must be attributable to a reliable, published source.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia, not a publisher of original thought. The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is whether material is attributable to a reliable published source, not whether it is true. Wikipedia is not the place to publish your opinions, experiences, or arguments.
or=wikien-l m=March 21 y=2007 r=20070321 kw=verifiability
No, I called the merge a monumentally bad idea. To be more specific, I found the redirects and complete elimination of WP:V and WP:NOR to be bad ideas. Those are conceptually distinct and need pages which explain them.
or=wikipedia-l m=August 10 y=2007 r=20070810 kw=verifiability
are much harder to find than sources for articles on topics pertaining to the Anglosphere. 2. Sources for articles on non-academic topics (that mainstream encyclopedias are unlikely to cover) should not be held to the same standards of reliability as sources for articles on academic topics (such as science and maths).
j=Original Research m=October 24 y=2007 r=20071025 13:33 UTC kw=verifiability
Someone, to everyone's shock, had managed to insert over the space of two years, a surprising amount of fabricated or misrepresented information, into a number of articles. He evaded notice by being civil, quick to back down in a conflict, and by focussing his attention on a number of subjects that non-experts were not likely to challenge his edits -- especially when he provided what appeared to be, at a casual examination, reliable sources.
j=lwn.net m=Febuary 20 y=2007 r=20070301 19:59 UTC kw=volunteer
Employer patterns in Linux kernel
Either way, the results come out about the same: at least 65% of the code which went into 2.6.20 was created by people working for companies. If the entire "unknown" group turns out to be developers working on a volunteer basis - an unlikely result - then just over 1/3 of the 2.6.20 patch stream was written by volunteers. The real number will be lower, but it still shows that a significant portion of the code we run is written by developers who are donating their time.
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=voting
A related issue occurs when multiple individuals create brand new accounts specifically to participate in (or influence) one particular vote or area of discussion. This is especially common in deletion discussions or controversial articles. These newly created accounts (or anonymous edits) may be friends of another editor, may be related in some way to the subject of an article under discussion, or may be solicited by someone to support a specific 'angle' in an article debate.
p=loose wire m=September 29 y=2005 r=20051002 kw=Zeitgeist
You know something has arrived when it’s used to describe a phenomenon. Or what people hope will be a phenomenon.
m=October 05 y=2005 r=20051005 kw=Zeitgeist
this article raises something that a friend brought up about the Wikipedia, when he a simple brief explanation on something he was more likely to use Wikipedia than Google now
j=The Onion m=September 28 v=41 n=39 y=2005 r=20051008 kw=Zeitgeist
WASHINGTON, DC-Congress scrapped the open-source, open-edit, online version of the Constitution Monday, only two months after it went live. "The idea seemed to dovetail perfectly with our tradition of democratic participation," Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid said. "But when so-called 'contributors' began loading it down with profanity, pornography, ASCII art, and mandatory-assault-rifle-ownership amendments, we thought it might be best to cancel the project." Congress intends to restore the Constitution to its pre-Wiki format as soon as an unadulterated copy of the document can be found.
j=CNET news m=September 29 y=2005 r=20051008 kw=Zeitgeist
When Esquire magazine writer A.J. Jacobs decided to do an article about the freely distributable and freely editable online encyclopedia Wikipedia, he took an innovative approach: He posted a crummy, error-laden draft of the story to the site.
or=Wikimedia-l m=October 30 y=2005 r=20051030 kw=Zeitgeist
(PRWEB) October 30, 2005 -- The Great Wiki Raid of '05 begins at 12:01 A.M. 31 October. For 24 hours futurists from around the world will mount a "knowledge assault" on Wikipedia.org, the world's largest collaborative online encyclopedia. Their goal is simple: to improve public knowledge about the field of futures studies.
or=Wikilaw m=December 07 y=2005 r=20051207 kw=Zeitgeist
Now dead
Democracy 2.0 is a Wikilaw experiment that hypothesizes that a wide range of individuals, not just politicians and special interest groups, can contribute to the creation of our nation's laws. All laws listed in this section are the collaborative effort of the Democracy 2.0 community. The site aggregates the viewpoints of all users, after a large number of edits, to reach a consensus on what laws society should impose on us.
or=Wikinews m=December 12 y=2005 r=20051212 kw=Zeitgeist
The Associated Press has changed their copyright notice with articles to include "you may not rewrite this article." Is Wikinews creating an impact on how other news sources release their information?
j=Village Voice m=January 10 y=2006 r=20060117 kw=Zeitgeist
Journalistic summary of history and contentious issues
Last year, the contributor with the most articles featured on the site's homepage was 17-year-old user "Lord Emsworth," still in high school. He wrote long, detailed entries on British nobility. Users addressed him as "your lordship." "You don't really need credentials to look at a book and take out the information," says Matt Wolf Binder, a 15-year-old from Seattle who's earned many Wikipedia peer awards, called Barnstars, including the Random Acts of Kindness Barnstar, the General Awesomeness Barnstar, the Working Man's Barnstar, and the Lots of Barnstars Barnstar. "If someone researches a topic, it doesn't matter if Harvard certifies them."
or=Wikimedia y=2006 r=20060406 14:30 UTC kw=Zeitgeist
Enter Wikipedia, one of the easiest and most effective means of actually applying specialist knowledge to reshape public understanding. In the current academic culture, the extent of intellectual outreach is the public lecture or interview, or the occasional late-career book that aims at a (very limited) popular audience (along with the requisite scholarly one). The only historical work that really makes it into public consciousness is what the media industries ask for from historians; Wikipedia (among other venues) is a chance for disciplines to shape their own public destinies and forge their own places in mass culture. Through the 20th century and into the 21st, the baseline of cultural literacy (at least in the developed world) has been increasingly determined by entertainment and broadcast news. The good news is that Wikipedia has quickly become a staple of internet culture and, increasingly, popular culture more broadly. Whetting appetites for a new hybrid of mass culture infotainment and well-rounded (encyclopedic) knowledge will hopefully lay the groundwork for a more thorough re-integration of a liberal education with entertainment and mass media; first Wikipedia, then Hollywood.
j=Out Of the Crooked Timer m=March 1 y=2006 r=20060301 kw=zeitgeist
State of WP as it reaches 1M articles
Still, as Bismarck is supposed to have said
The process by which Wikipedia entries are produced is, in many cases, far from edifying: the marvel, as with democracies and markets, is that the outcomes are as good as they are.
or=wikien-l m=August 29 y=2006 r=20060829 kw=zeitgeist
Hi all, Just removed another tripling elephant population reference at [[Queenie (elephant)]], which had apparently been there for 2 weeks. I wonder how many more of these there are.
or=wikien-l m=August 06 y=2006 r=20060806 kw=zeitgeist
I just came across <a href="http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599">http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9433599</a>, which is the lead section of the Encyclopaedia Britannica article about wikipedia. There is also one about wikis in general: <a href="http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276">http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9404276</a>.
or=wikien-l m=August 07 y=2006 r=20060807 kw=zeitgeist
The author of the EB article (Michael Aaron Dennis) is a very sharp guy, and a very sensitive thinker, I know of his work (he is a historian of science, or sociologist of science, or some combination of the two). He is currently an independent scholar; I have corresponded with him a few times on issues unrelated to Wikipedia, and the work of his I know is really quite excellent. So there's my bias on the table.
or=wikien-l m=August 28 y=2006 r=20060828 kw=zeitgeist
"Mathematics is supposed to be a Wikipedia-like undertaking," from nytimes.com > 2006 > 08 > 27 > Weekinreview > 27johnson
It is funny to me that Wikipedia is showing up more and more in these contexts.
m=October 19 y=2006 r=20061023 kw=zeitgeist
Welcome to Wikiality, the Wiki dedicated to upholding and documenting truthiness. Wikiality isn't about what "factonistas" might sneeringly deride ...
j=The Chronicle m=October 27 y=2006 r=20061026 20:34 UTC kw=zeitgeist
"As questions about the accuracy of the anyone-can-edit encyclopedia persist, academics are split on whether to ignore it, or start contributing"
j=Savage Love appearing in The Stranger m=October 26 y=2006 r=20061026 20:36 UTC kw=zeitgeist
savage love and donkeypunch
I'm working with Wikipedia, where we're currently debating the "Donkey Punch." It may not be real, but Wikipedia has articles on perpetual motion, sewer alligators, and creationism—why not Donkey Punching? The difference, though, is that the Donkey Punch (fucking someone in the ass and then punching them hard in the back of the head or neck, so that the sudden pain and/or unconsciousness causes the asshole to constrict spasmodically) is short-term dangerous. Therefore, some editors have said the article should specify just how risky and possibly even criminal it is.
or=Wikileaks y=2007 r=20070111 21:43 UTC kw=zeitgeist
Wikileaks is developing an uncensorable Wikipedia for untraceable mass document leaking and analysis. Our primary interests are oppressive regimes in Asia, the former Soviet bloc, Sub-Saharan Africa and the Middle East, but we also expect to be of assistance to those in the west who wish to reveal unethical behavior in their own governments and corporations. We aim for maximum political impact; this means our interface is identical to Wikipedia and usable by non-technical people. We have received over 1.2 million documents so far from dissident communities and anonymous sources.
j=edwired m=December 14 y=2006 r=20070203 23:43 UTC kw=zeitgeist
In addition to talking about Wikipedia often, I also assigned my graduate students several readings on Wikipedia and had them create their own entries. I gave my undergraduates the option of creating an entry for extra credit (only two did took me up on the offer). The discussion the graduate students had in our blog was especially interesting, because, while many remained skeptical of the virtues of Wikipedia and almost everyone disliked the interface, as a group they were intrigued by the possibilities of "open source history" and at least one is convinced the Wikipedia is worthy of more serious research.
j=Communications of the ACM n=12 pp=152 v=48 y=2005 r=20070501 kw=zeitgeist
Reliance upon Wikipedia presents the following risks: accuracy, motives, uncertain expertise, volatility, coverage, sources
152 Misinformation has a negative value; even if you get it for free, you pay too much.
152 Wikipedia is an interesting social experiment in knowledge compilation and codification. However, it cannot attain the status of a true encyclopedia without more formal content-inclusion and expert review procedures.
j=English today That m=July n=3 v=87 y=2006 r=20070501 kw=zeitgeist
The author argues Wikipedia is of interest to the Journal, is often used by his students, and merits further discussion
j=Ragesoss 2.02 m=March 23 y=2007 r=20070323 15:43 UTC kw=zeitgeist
Notes a decline in the exponential growth
The most obviously change is in public perception and media coverage. Between the Middlebury College story, the Essjay story, and the Sinbad story, Wikipedia has been a constant presence in the headlines for several weeks running. With the possible exception of Essjay, none of these is even close to the significance of the Seigenthaler controversy, but the volume of related news and blog noise since late January (when the first of these stories emerged) has been as large or larger.
The exponential phase of (English) Wikipedia's growth (in terms of number of articles, and in terms of number of active users) is probably over. From 2003 to mid-2006, the number of articles had followed a very regular exponential pattern. Had exponential growth continued, it would have hit 2,000,000 a few weeks ago; it just passed 1,700,000 today. The average number of articles created per day since late December (around 1724) has actually been lower than the average number per day over the previous year (1823). This difference is only partly the result of the always slower holiday season. It seems that available unwritten encyclopedic topics is becoming a significant constraint.
or=wikien-l m=March 30 y=2007 r=20070330 kw=zeitgeist
It also claims that the New York Times changed a published article without mentioning it on the page or issuing a correction. That's very interesting in the context of the recent discussion on the reliability and durability of web-based citations.
Wikipedia is such a powerful argument engine that it actually leaks out to the rest of the web, spontaneously forming meta-arguments about itself on any open message board.
Well, Wikipedia exists in a state of quantum significance flux. It's simultaneously a shining, flawless collection of incontrovertible information, and a debased pile of meaningless words thrown together by uneducated lemurs with political agendas. It simply cannot exist in any state between these two extremes. You can test this yourself by expressing a reasonable opinion about the site in any public space. Whatever words you type, they will be interpreted by readers as supporting one of these two opposing views.
It will help to familiarize yourself with some of the common terms used on Wikipedia:
meat puppet: A person who disagrees with you.
non-notable: A subject you're not interested in.
vandalism: An edit you didn't make.
neutral point of view: Your point of view.
consensus: A mythical state of utopian human evolution. Many scholars of Wikipedian theology theorize that if consensus is ever reached, Wikipedia will spontaneously disappear.
j=Slashdot m=April 13 y=2007 r=20070414 21:13 UTC kw=zeitgeist
"Recently, our school board made the decision to block Wikipedia from our school district's WAN system. This was a complete block — there aren't even provisions in place for teachers or administrators to input a password to bypass the restriction. The reason given was that Wikipedia (being user created and edited) did not represent a credible or reliable source of information for schools. Should we block sites such as Wikipedia because students may be exposed to misinformation, or should we encourage sites such as Wikipedia as an outlet for students to investigate and determine the validity of the information?"
j=Playbill News m=July 19 y=2007 r=20070727 17:06 UTC kw=zeitgeist
The Wikipedia Plays is the title of a mini-marathon of short plays that will be presented at the Ars Nova Aug. 3-6 at 7 PM.
The plays, according to press notes, "surf the wikipedia wave through seventeen related entries." The works were written by members of the Play Group, a mix of up-n-coming writers who gather twice a month at the Ars Nova to share their work.
j=Yahoo! News m=October 22 y=2007 r=20071026 18:07 UTC kw=zeitgeist
They say if you can make it in New York you can make it anywhere. But these days, it seems you haven't really made it unless you have that most prized of status symbols -- your very own page on Wikipedia.
j=Ars Technica m=October 30 y=2007 r=20071030 12:51 UTC kw=zeitgeist
The Wikipedia community, however, was not as impressed. One article didn't survive for 24 hours following its introduction, and four additional ones were ultimately deleted following extensive discussion, their contents merged into existing entries. Groom also noted that some of the comments in the ensuing discussions "were delivered rudely."