Talk:Task force/Recommendations/Wikipedia Quality
- [History↑]
Contents
| Thread title | Replies | Last modified |
|---|---|---|
| Suggestion: Expand the standard "published by a reliable source" and "verifiability" | 4 | 06:54, 14 July 2010 |
| Access to reference databases | 1 | 02:34, 26 March 2010 |
| Review of recommendations | 1 | 06:05, 6 February 2010 |
| Suggestion: Expand the inclusion standard 'published by a reliable source' and 'verifiability' | 4 | 06:22, 5 February 2010 |
| Cost vs Benefits of Wikiprojects | 9 | 17:18, 4 February 2010 |
| vv | 17 | 08:14, 3 February 2010 |
| these should be supplemented | 3 | 08:08, 3 February 2010 |
| (External) experts | 3 | 12:59, 2 February 2010 |
| senior editors and baseline quality | 34 | 04:59, 1 February 2010 |
| Better monitoring of Wiki projects | 2 | 19:25, 28 January 2010 |
| Include themes to fantasize the project | 0 | 20:54, 21 January 2010 |
| Increasing student and teachers user groups | 0 | 20:42, 21 January 2010 |
| Biographical entries ~ specifically regarding Norman Mailer | 3 | 21:07, 19 January 2010 |
Suggestion: Expand the standard "published by a reliable source" and "verifiability"
"The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source".
Historically an encyclopedia is considered to be more accurate than a media article. Wikipedia has grown up and should not have an inferiority complex. Most Wikipedia articles are far better and more accurate than media articles. It should be more clearly stated what should be done when published "reliable" media sources say opposite things or are contradicted by other significant quality sources.
The phrase "not truth" gives me the creeps and is subject to obvious abuse.
Following is the 1st principle from "The Elements of Journalism — What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect": 1. JOURNALISM’S FIRST OBLIGATION IS TO THE TRUTH
This does not have to be Wikipedia's 1st principle, but Wikipedia is too good a thing not to recognize this standard. How could this principle be more included?
I agree completely with these comments. I've searched on topics for which I have some or extensive knowledge, and often find what I would call "slants." E.g. the author appears to bring a particular motive to the subject, versus conveying the truth. It concerns me that users form views based on these slants, which may be way off in terms of the balance of collective views, or the truth of the matter.
One consideration might be to include a "truth" scale- to delineate between something from a credible source, versus something investigated extensively as to the truth of the claims. I suspect that in many cases- you would need to indicate that while verifiability is high, truth is low, which doesn't necessarily mean "untrue"- but rather, not verified as true.
Clearly this is a tall order, but is consistent with our need to move into a realm of significantly greater integrity in this world.
Many would agree with these comments, and that is a big problem. This pursuit of Truth is leading to much of the slanted content (a slant is somebody's truth). The object is to present knowledge, i.e. information presented in its proper context. This quest for truth is an obstacle, getting in the way of achieving that. - Brya 04:52, 1 February 2010 (UTC)
As far as I can tell the standard is truth. Verifiability is merely the tool we use to judge what is true and what is not. What other tool could we possibly use? We can't allow the inclusion of "true things which are not verifiable", because in reality that just amounts to "things that are allegedly true but we can't really be sure one way or the other." Verifiability is essential to truth.
Article quality could improve if Wikipedians were given access to reference databases such as what Credo Reference is doing.
Well, that seems like a good idea really. The tagline of Credo says "Credo Reference puts the world's best citable information at your fingertips." If it lived up to that potential, then maybe Wikipedias would improve greatly. I already have access to one database. It is a very good source to find information.
I'm experienced only with en.wikipedia and won't speak on other projects here. This senior/established/whatever editors meme has been perennially rejected, it really seems at odd with our core values as you put it; see here for the latest instance, unanimously rejected. It seems enormously out of touch with reality actually to think it would be a benefit, and would only generate drama if imposed somehow (and fail) - search wp space for established editors and similar and you'll see. For this, it won't help a bit in terms of community health either, quite the opposite actually. Back to the point of quality though; I've been pondering those issues for quite some time. What we need most badly to improve quality are technical enhancements, for:
- better monitoring of articles - e.g. improvements to watchlists which became outdated when wikipedia reached more than a few ten thousands articles, same for recent changes which are outdated as monitoring tool, see for example patrolled revisions for a new way to monitor articles massively and collaboratively
- less restrictive protection methods to let in positive participation - e.g. flagged protection
- easier coordination (example of a technical tool for better monitoring and collaboration: Proposal:Common watchlists)
- improved usability, which permits to expand reach - to experts in particular (being worked on, at least)
- etc.
We also need a better communication within the community, in a broad sense; which includes for example more publicity for wikiprojects, which allow real collaboration between users in an area (bringing for example consistence, much needed in an encyclopaedia) and are driving forces for featured content, but also better guidance of newcomers. The baseline quality standard, while interesting theoretically, seems close to impossible to be effectively implemented wiki-wide (actually, some attempts have already been made to make global assessments below GA/FA, but they were all unsuccessful). The brand looks like an invitation to wikilawerying and awfully complicated to be recognized through consensus as our 'brand' (for which tangible benefice ?, we already have the 5 pillars and beyond, the policies and guidelines speak for themselves). As for the first recommendation (global wikiprojects), I'm not sure of the feasibility but it could be interesting to try out.
Yes, it is true that the idea of senior/established/whatever editors is not a new one. The recommendation here is not quite the same as the one you refer to, so it may meet with a slightly different reception. But certainly, it is likely to meet with at least some oppostion, and certainly its actual success will depend very much on its exact implementation. However, this same goes for "better communication within the community"; better communication may be a force for evil as easily as for good; it all depends. I agree that the idea of a "baseline quality standard ... seems close to impossible to be effectively implemented". It looks like a vicious circle to me.
However, I do believe in the Brand as a force for good. The 5 pillars are widely misunderstood; "the policies and guidelines [may] speak for themselves" but in my experience most users do not hear them speak, but rather hear what they want to hear. This is evidenced on this very page, by users who want "Truth, not information"; certainly such users are not rare and the project reflects that (I am going by a 40% rate of error). - Brya 06:05, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
Suggestion: Expand the inclusion standard 'published by a reliable source' and 'verifiability'
'The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, not truth—that is, whether readers are able to check that material added to Wikipedia has already been published by a reliable source.'
Historically an encyclopedia is considered to be more accurate than a media article. Wikipedia has grown up and should not have an inferiority complex. Most Wikipedia articles are far better and more accurate than media articles. It should be more clearly stated what should be done when published "reliable" media sources say opposite things or are contradicted by other significant quality sources.
The phrase 'not truth' gives me the creeps and is subject to obvious abuse.
Following is the 1st principle from 'The Elements of Journalism — What Newspeople Should Know and the Public Should Expect': 1. JOURNALISM'S FIRST OBLIGATION IS TO THE TRUTH
This does not have to be Wikipedia's 1st principle, but Wikipedia is too good a thing not to recognize this standard. How could this principle be more included?
It should not be "more included": it should be fought tooth-and-nail. Wikipedia aims to provide knowledge: information and facts. The Truth has to be kept out of Wikipedia; every editor should realize that Truth = PoV; each and every Truth should be presented in its proper context. - Brya 05:49, 29 January 2010 (UTC)
I'm not sure you understand the NPOV policy. If the truth is -- as you say -- a point of view (I do not agree) then it should still be included, not excluded. However, I would not go so far as to say non-truth should also be included, because I reject the premise that truth is always a point of view. In some subjects, it is, such as matters of opinion like aesthetics and nationalism. But truth is objective in mathematics, including statistics. We can summarize subjective truth(s) when more objective measures are not apparent.
TRUTH does not exist. We can not decide who occupied the Palestine - Jews and Arabs. We can not write the TRUTH that the Palestine belongs to Israel, or that it does not belong to Israel. Just to take an example.
The NPoV-policy is aimed at excluding TRUTH; every Truth should be stripped of its pretensions and presented in its proper context.
And of course, mathematics is a separate case; mathematics is a universe by itself, or rather a collection of separate universes. Indeed you can say "this is mathematically true", but that does not necessarily mean much, in practice. This actually is not much different from religion: every religion has its own Truths, which are only true within that religion. - Brya 06:22, 5 February 2010 (UTC)
I would submit that Wikiprojects, like many other "features" of Wikipedia, were created without a clear cost/benefit analysis, and now survive and multiply largely by the blind physiological growth-drive of any bureaucracy, rather then by their actual value for the Wikipedia project. A few months ago I posted some statistics on one randomly chosen Wikiproject to the Wikiproject Council forum. I may have been very unlucky, but based on that single sample and less systematic observations I am inclined to believe that:
- Only a very small percentage of the listed members of a Wikiproject actually make significant contributions to the project's articles.
- Significant contributions to those articles were are by editors who were not members of the Wikiproject.
- The production of "good" and "featured" articles in an area is not significantly enhaned by the creation of a Wikiproject on that area.
- Raising an article to "good" or "featured" status requires intense work (several hundred edits over a couple of month), almost all of it by one, with little or no contribution from other Wikiproject members.
- The editors who most contribute to said articles are self-motivated, and are neither marshalled not guided by the Wikiproject.
Thus I would claim that the contribution of the Wikiprojects to Wikipedia is largely illusory: they do not generate or promote good work, they only passively receive credit for any work done on "their" articles -- work which would be done even if the Wikiprojects did not exist.
On the other hand, Wikiprojects have several significant costs:
- A significant amount of editor work is spent in bureaucratic activities (tagging, classifying, and grading articles, writing guidelines, editing the project's page, designing navboxes and infoboxes, etc.)
- More editor time is wasted (by members and non-members alike) on reading Project guidelines.
- If (and to the extent that) Wikiprojects are effective, they encourage "tribalism", the fragmentation of Wikipedia's editor base into communities with divergent goals. Namely they augment an already worrisome tendency of articles getting written not only by the "insiders" of a topic but also for those "insiders". Thus articles on Christianity topics end up being written for Christian readers, articles on anime for anime fans, articles on chemistry for chemists, and so on. This tribalism results in articles whose language, arrangement, and perspective are inadequate for general readers, who presumably are "outsiders" for the most part.
- The article grading scheme operated by the Wikiprojects was inherited from the Wikipedia-1.0 project, and encourages editors to work towards the goals of WP-1.0, instead of those of the "real" Wikipedia. Specifically the grading scheme offers psychological rewards for the editor who spends a couple of months producing a single "A"-level article, and no reward at all for the editor who puts the same effort into bringing 100 articles from "C" to "B" class. Yet it is these, and not the "A" articles, which are most useful to the readers.
My negative views on the worth of Wikiprojects stems ultimately from the huge discrepancy between the amount of work that needs to be done (over 3,000,000 articles in the English Wilipedia alone, almost all of them in need of expansion or cleanup; plus sevral million of articles that ought to exist but don't) and the number of editors who would have to do that work (depending on how one counts, less than 10,000 people, and shrinking). If a team of 10 volunteer janitors get the assignment of keeping the Pentagon building clean, there is no management structure or overseeing mechanism that would get them to work more (or more productively) than simply letting each janitor roam the building at random cleaning up whatever mess he finds. On the contrary, if any of those janitors were to be diverted from random cleaning work to management or evaluation activities, the only result would be a drop of 10% in the team's prouctivity.
So I would urge Wikipedia's administrators to take a closer critical look at the cost/benefit ratio of Wikiprojects in general; not merely enumerating expected benefits but trying to quantitaively measure the actual benefits. All the best, --143.106.24.25 03:33, 21 January 2010 (UTC)
Just signing the previous entry: Jorge Stolfi (working mostly in the English Wikipedia).
Actually, I think that this evaluation is overly optimistic. The danger of Wikiprojects is not so much that they siphon off effort which otherwise would have been a contribution towards the goal of the overall project. It is not necessarily the case that the time spend on bureacratic activities would otherwise have been spent on article quality (after all every user decides for himself how much time he spends on what activity) or that if the time were to be spent on articles it would lead to an improvement in quality.
The danger of Wikiprojects is that they may form independent communities, each with their own distinctive community values (bias, etc), and that they may work at cross-purposes from what the overall project is trying to achieve. The focus should be outwards, on reality, on actual knowledge and on how to make it accessable. Once there is a community the risk is that the focus turns inwards, playing the community game; then the overall project loses out. - Brya 06:46, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
This definitely occurs, with the projects forming strong communities, lobbying acceptance of policies, going all together to deletion reviews etc. But I expect that with the increase of the project mass these effects become less pronounced, whereas the availability of expert to comment/help creating/help improving articles increases.
Dear Jorge Stolfi,
If I assume that the goal of a project is to create FA or GA articles, and assume that FA and GA are good indicators for the amount of quality, than I agree with you. However, I don't think either one of those assumptions is necessarily true.
The task force for quality has recommended to bring the Wikiprojects of diferent Wikipedias together. The reason behind this is not to stimulate the production of FA articles, but to encourage discussion and enquiry. The projects should be the platforms where specialist users meet to find areas where the coverage is lacking, answer questions from other users and try to give their work some direction. Also, they should try to establish what aspects like "verifiability", "balance" and "neutrality" mean for their particular field.
Dear Woodwalker, My concern is broader and more basic than "whether Wikiprojects are producing FA/GA articles". The fundamental problem that I see (of which Wikiprojects are only one facet) is the lack of any conscious effort within Wikimedia to prevent "rampant featuritis" and bureaucratization.
As things are now, any editor can invent a new Wikipedia "feature" (guideline, template, navbox, infobox, wikiproject, category, portal, task force, whatever), and start using it on articles. Then other editors see that "feature", assume that it is "official policy", and start using it themselves, believing that doing so "good citizen"'s work. That is how we got stub tags, categories, editorial tags, "main article" templates, infoboxes, navboxes, citation templates, en-dashes in article names, wikitable syntax, the "articles for deletion" page, Wikiprojects, the Wikiproject Council, Wikiportals, format-tweaking robots, and much more --- including the vast ocean of pages in the Wikipedia:* namespace.
Every one of those "features" has a huge cost: not only the editor work that is diverted from content creation to formatting, classifying, tagging, sorting, and debating, but also the loss of editors, new or old, who are put off by the increasing complexity of the system. The latter, alas, is almost invisible. (Statistics indicate that the editor base, which had been doubling each year until 2005, has been decreasing since 2006 with a half-life of 4--5 years. It seems that since 2006 practically no new editors have joined, and old editors have been steadily dropping out. I wonder whether Wikipedia planners are aware of those numbers?)
The problem is that none of those "features" went through a critical cost/benefit analysis. Unfortunately Wikipedia has neither the tools nor the organizational structure to do such an analysis. It also lacks any mechanism that could reduce its complexity and eliminate counterproductive features. Ironically, it has a mechanism for deleting *articles* (and a subset of editors who apparently enjoy doing that, and do it a lot); but it has no mechanism to delete *features*. Essentially, once a template has been used in a few hundred articles, it is practically impossible to delete; and the same goes for all other features. Can you imagine a corporation that allows each employee to start or join as many projects as he wishes, does not perform any per-project accounting, and is unable to stop a project that cannot bring revenue? Well, that is Wikiedia...
I firmly believe that if *any or all* of the above features were suddenly deleted, Wikipedia would become a much better encyclopedia, and editors would become more efficient and satisfied. All the best, Jorge Stolfi --143.106.24.25 09:43, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
See also this proposal. - Brya 05:35, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Dear Jorge Solfi,
This is indeed a concern. Tagging articles with what you call features is part of what I call "maintenance edits". I agree that such edits may have negative indirect effects on community health/happiness. I can recommend you to read this essay by Sjc. On the discussion page, I made a comment about "maintenance-driven policy" and my fear that this discourages good editors. The problem we discuss here is slightly different, but similar.
I do agree that creation of new "features" is too easy in the current set-up. In my view however, maintenance edits aren't a primary task of wikiprojects.
From my own experience, the real problem of WikiProjects is that most of them are essentially inactive. I do a lot of gnome work and when I spot problems that I can't solve, I try to notify the relevant project. That seemed like a pretty good strategy when I started but in most cases, it turns out to be a waste of time since project members either don't watch the talk page or don't actually respond to these requests. Writing GA and FA is nice of course, but it's equally important for a project to take routine care of its articles and to take on less glamorous tasks. It's symptomatic of a more general weakness of the project: there are very few mechanisms in place to report problems requiring the help of a competent editor.
I am not sure I like the way this is phrased. I rather liked the way things were qualified here: consensus should be explicitly be based on in NPOV, V and NOR. Otherwise "consensus" is just control by an unwashed mob, leading to complete crap.
Erecting global Wikiprojects by itself won't do much. If there are already local Wikiprojects that do a good job then this will radiate out to other languages; adding a global Wikiproject will not help that much more additionally. If there are already local Wikiprojects that mess up badly (and they exist; I have never seen a really bad problem that was not caused by a Wikiproject), then going global will just create global problems, sucking in the languages that so far were doing allright, on their own resources.
I do like the idea of recruiting experts for review purposes, but I am dubious as to the details. The idea that outside experts would go and write Wikipedia content would not go over well with the community. And a review by itself is not necessarily helpful: very often the flaws are not only well-known, but they are there for a reason: somebody put them there. - Brya 04:54, 11 January 2010 (UTC)
We have been discussing these issues extensively at the Talk page of Wikipedia quality task force.I suggest that we continue discussing specific points over these. I myself also do not like how the things are phrased (and I still have to add a couple of things), and I was asking at the talk page for feedback, but so far did not get much. If somebody would like to change/edit/suggest smth else, they are welcome. But we have to deliver smth by Tuesday, and somebody has to write the recommendations. So fat, that was me. If somebody else would like to do it, summarizing our discussion, fine with me.
I see the need for haste. I was bold and rewrote the recommendations. Mainly I aimed for clarity and readability. However, I eliminated the "academic writing style", as firstly I do not believe in a universal style, but rather a style appropriate to each topic. Secondly, an academic writing style could be interpreted as a style full of technical jargon; such a style could easily be overdone.
Also, I put in a little more structure (and added some detail). - Brya 04:25, 12 January 2010 (UTC)
Thank you, I think in any case the recommendations are now better that what I wrote. I hope we will have a chance to discuss the remaining issues at the Task force talk page.
I still added the mentioning of the baseline quality standard, since it featured prominently in all the discussion, and I think it is important that it shows up in the summary.
I have added a bullet. Personally I am not a fan of assessment procedures, unless for a specific purpose (assessment is fine for FA). My personal experience with the English Wikipedia runs along the lines of "This is highly valuable content. Let's track down who contributed this and shoot him so that he does not do so again" with assessment a bureacratic procedure to cover up what Wikiprojects are actually doing, how bad things really are and as a means to suppress quality.
Of course that is only local, and I would not want to say it can never work. What I am saying is that I have never seen it work and I do not believe in it. - Brya 04:56, 13 January 2010 (UTC)
Thanks to you and to Woudloper for corrections, very much appreciated. As for the baseline quality standard, I believe it is connected with FR (and thus is working at least in de.wp and ru.wp, even if these two projects use two different standards), but we have not discussed it enough to include this correction into recommendations.
Senior editors? Really? Outside of semi-protected articles, I have yet to see a single reasonable explanation here of why demarcating who seems "elite" and who does not is necessary.
Senior editors is a totally unnecessary role - it can only hurt us and divide us.
What good could a "senior editor" do? Edit articles? Make suggestions? Can't any editor who wants to already do those without a special title? If they need us to baby them with a special gold star and power over the rest of us, they can just go home. There are plenty of good editors already who will do the work for free without requiring they be bowed to.
A contribution I make is no more or less valuable if it was made by a "Senior Editor." Wikipedia is based off of implicit trust of most editors' goodwill, and it is against the spirit of Wikipedia to diminish that trust, and say "no, now we no longer trust anyone but these people." Preventing non or new users from making edits in important articles is one thing. Turning wikipedia into a half-baked citizendium.org is another.
We do not need a bunch of content-kings. We do not need bosses who use their authority to oppress and control our writing. What if a government or corporation starts buying off senior editors? Hm? What then? This elitism flies clear in the face of everything wikimedia stands for. Open-ness, Accessibility, Egalitarianism.
How could the strategy task force be so foolish? Was it composed entirely of business manager types who are upset with the current fair, open-minded setup so they run over here to change it?
I am somewhat mystified by this response. It says "We do not need bosses who use their authority to oppress and control our writing." but in parts of the project that is the existing state of affairs. There are many who "I, by my authority as an egalitarian ...", "I, by my authority as being free of the taint of anything as elitist as knowledge of the topic ...", "I, by my authority as a custodian of the Truth ..." are engaged in "oppress[ing] and control[ling the] writing" of those who want to work towards the goals of the project.
The recommendation says nothing about "demarcating who seems "elite" and who does not". - Brya 05:14, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The recommendation does not say that, but by giving a prestigious label, such as senior editor, to anyone, whether they act like this or not, we would be de facto legitimizing their place as "knowledge authorities." This cannot be helpful.
Whether it is ostensibly for that purpose or not, creating a special class of recognized editors will project them as an 'editor ruling class' to current and future editors alike. We don't need that here, we've done fine without it for years. As you say, we already have plenty of people who walk around like authorities; why tolerate and encourage that behaviour by giving them plaques?
You assert that "we've done fine without it years." Is it possible that we could do better with it? I think it's possible.
Philippe
Well, as to the "we already have plenty of people who walk around like authorities; why tolerate and encourage that behaviour by giving them plaques?" this recommendation certainly does not propose to give them plaques. But certainly there is a danger in creating this senior editor-status that it will be converted into plaques-to-be-won. That is a big concern, and certainly elections are not the way to go. If senior editor status happens it better be exclusive enough to go only to those who deserve it.
However, in spite of the fact that there are lots of users who disdain, or even hate, the very idea of knowledge, instead preferring to pursue truth (especially their Very Own Truth), the project is all about making knowledge accessible (at least officially). As such, it depends on users who care about knowledge and know how to handle it. As these users are so rare it makes sense to give some of these (hardy enough to stand up for the core values of the project) a somewhat special status. - Brya 05:22, 3 February 2010 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the idea of "senior editors" (super editors?) if they HAVE expertise but I have witnessed too many such super editors who make definitive decisions editing or deleting entries without an adequate knowledge base. Particularly super editors who presume that if they don't know about something then that subject lacks notability. I have read contributors' entries which have advanced my knowledge, and which I have subsequently used to find more data, only to return later and find the entry deleted. LAWinans 05:02, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
The criterium for selection would have to be commitment to core values and experience, not expertise. Presumably anybody who meets this criterium would be well aware of the limits of what he does and does not know. The big question is how to optimize the odds of selecting those who actually meet this criterium, rather than getting somebody who is popular.
There is no doubt that in the existing system a lot of bad decisions get made. - Brya 05:22, 31 January 2010 (UTC)
These additional recommendations were proposed and discussed with only token, unspecific objections to merely a fraction of them, all within the specified time frame for recommendations. I see no reason they should not be included in large part.
Are there any reasons those recommendations should not be incorporated with the existing recommendations? If they should be modified before inclusion, what modifications would be best?
First, existing recommendations are closed for editing, and can not be modified. Second, I do not see any consensus in the discussion.
In your other comments you say that the recommendations need further discussion and refinement. Which is it, are they open or closed?
And what do you mean by, "collect expertise across all projects"? What does that involve? Why is it expected to improve the quality of content?
My other comments have been made when the recommendations were still open. Now they are closed by Philippe.
By "collecting expertise across all projects" I mean the following. There are subjects weakly covered even in English wikipedia. For instance, physics. I know there are experts in other projects who are knowledgeable but who can not / do not want / are not interested in contributing to English Wikipedia. Collecting expertise would mean assembling critical mass of these experts who can evaluate articles or create articles and subsequently translate to other languages. Another thing is a national bias: I am not sure English or say Spanish Wikipedias have sufficient number of users qualified to write about Hungarian art, but Hungarian wikipedia presumably has, and some of these users may be available for cross-project collaboration.
There is now a item:
-
- "Means: Attract experts active on local projects (for that particular topic or field). There should be a supporting structure to help and guide these experts on how the wiki works and to coordinate bringing the results back to the wiki."
The issue is whether the recommendation is to unite locally active experts or whether to attract actual (external) experts. In my mind the first approach is essentially self-defeating (it would only lead to more of the same), but I have already said that.
From an editorial perspective this item should be trimmed down to either
-
- A) "Means: Unite experts active on local projects."
or
-
- B) "Means: Attract experts (for that particular topic or field). There should be a supporting structure to help and guide these experts on how the wiki works and to coordinate bringing the results back to the wiki."
If this is an internal affair there is not much need to erect a supporting structure for that particular global Wikiproject. - Brya 04:51, 15 January 2010 (UTC)
As far as I am concerned, it is both. Uniting internal experts (wiki-experts, who may be just highly qualified amateurs) is needed to create a critical mass in the areas we do not have so much attention. Attracting external experts (who hopefully will be real experts) is needed to reinforce these areas and to help creating/peer-reviewing articles which could not be created without at least some expert help.
External experts can help without becoming full-time or even part-time editors. When the article on Euler was in the process of getting Featured Article status on en.wiki, the main contributor contacted someone (can't quite remember who it was) who had specific expertise and simply asked him to read the article and comment on it. The advantage is that the expert in question can provide meaningful help without investing a significant amount of time in the project and validation from people who are not immersed in the community's culture can highlight problems that experienced wiki editors can't see. This kind of strategy requires a little humility from the editors who have worked their butts off to build an article but it's definitely workable and could be implemented systematically for FAs if we can curb the culture of "experts? Who needs them!"
I'm really glad to see that these two ideas have made it into the final recommendations for quality. I'm a little disappointed about the lack of detail though. After all the discussions, I'm surprised that there weren't at least a few consensus ideas for how to measure these two things.
My impression is that we have not discussed enough. I suggest we continue the discussions and try to converge to more concrete ideas.
A good starting point would be to summarize these discussions:
Senior editors:
Baseline quality (more scattered):
- Thread:Talk:Task force/Wikipedia Quality/Let's set a palatable objective
- Thread:Talk:Task force/Wikipedia Quality/Measuring quality (narrow focus)
- Thread:Talk:Task force/Wikipedia Quality/Measuring quality (narrow focus)/reply (19)
Then we know that we'll have something that at least approaches consensus.
I'm concerned that the recommendations don't really have any sort of defined process for how to determine such things. It is nice to put forth a goal or a result, but it is another matter to define a path to said goal or result. There is also the matter of being in good standing, and many people have differing ideas of what content contribution is. Ottava Rima 03:24, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
Yes, that is a concern. The discussion focused on the goal of a baseline for quality, and the main agreement reached was to keep it simple. The criterium should be not-violating-NOR,-NPoV-or-V-policies.
However, there was not much discussion on how this should be set up. Personally I am very concerned that in areas where there is a strong bias (unitedly held by the owners of the WikiProject) it actually is pointless to hope that it is possible to mark articles as not meeting this baseline. The same forces that put in flaws, in the first place, will keep them from being marked. It tends to be a vicious circle. Perhaps somebody will have a bright idea on how to do this, but I have not seen one yet. - Brya 05:53, 20 January 2010 (UTC)
In the FA process, they frown upon featuring articles that are entirely reviewed by a single WikiProject. The idea being that as you get a bunch of different opinions in there, you're more likely to weed out bias. That, combined with a commonly held idea of "NPOV", keeps our best articles in pretty good shape compared to most trash on the Internet.
Baseline quality is harder. If we want a lot of articles to meet the baseline, we need a process that's going to be a lot less bureaucratic than featured articles. But that means it's going to be a bit more vulnerable to the whims of individuals. This is a hard one to deal with. Maybe the standard for baseline quality will unfortunately be soft on POV: that a baseline article should be neutral in that it covers multiple viewpoints in a neutral tone, but not necessarily neutral overall.
@Brya (this one's especially meant for you): projects are, in my vision, not factories that produce FA or GA, or other content. They are forums where people with the same speciality can meet and discuss. One problem (I have said this many times here) with Wikipedia is it attracts a community of editors with many technical but little social and communicative skills. Therefore, I believe the key words are discussion, cooperation and communication. Discussion leads to intelligent, critical enquiry, and is ultimately the only way forward to improve quality. Fear of others and their views or actions leads to conflict, angst, and stalemates where quality can no longer increase.
A statement that "discussion, cooperation and communication" are key, may sound very fine, but it does not necessarily mean anything, unless there is clarity about the objective and at least some mutual respect. Discussion may lead to many things, not necessarily positive. As to ultimate ways, well, I tend to keep away from religion. I do not see any other way towards improving quality than actually putting in the work.
My experience on the English Wikipedia is that Wikiprojects tend to be clubs of users who among themselves have come to an internal agreement to close themselves (and 'their' part of Wikipedia) off from reality, for example by exempting themselves from NpoV-, NOR- and V-policies.
Obviously, that is not necessarily the case for all Wikiprojects, but it does happen. A mere idea (for a Wikiproject, or for a "senior editor"), by itself, does not have particular value. It is all in how it is implemented and how it helps towards making the overall goal come true. - Brya 06:33, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The general rule is that two people know more than one, and in the same way: two wikipedias know more than one. Yet that doesn't mean what they say is necessarily true. That's why we should have and follow guidelines about encyclopaedicity, neutrality, verifiability, balance and article coverage.
The tasks this task force envisioned for meta-projects are different from the things projects at wp-en are doing. Nevertheless, I am a member of the wikiproject:geology at wp-en and have its talk page on my watchlist. That particular project is working fine. When a user posts a certain question, I may answer. There are some 30 other geologists active on wp-en that may do the same.
Two people may know more than one if it comes down to a simple addition, but some of the things they know will contradict each other; the things they agree on knowing will be a lot less than what one person knows. As to the useful work they produce, there are many cases where two (or ten) people together do not produce half (or a tenth) the amount of work one person can do (if he knows what he is doing). It all depends. - Brya 05:43, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Indeed, the idea is not to keep such a project as an elite club, but more as a driving force. A simple example: today as an admin I had to make a decision on an article about a computer game. I have myself no idea about the computer games. The deletion review was not active, only the author of the article voted (obviously, against deletion). What I did I went to the computer games project, asked their opinion, and eventually deleted the article. That was my responsibility, but eventually their expertise.
The problem is we're arguing in the abstract. We've just said "create a quality baseline" and "create a senior editor position". There's hundreds of bad ways to do both of those things, starting with the idea that any random editor can slap the tag "senior" on themselves after a certain number of edits, and that you can go in and say "this article looks like quality to me." If that's where this is going, then of course Brya is right.
This takes me back to the original question: what are the specifics for senior editors, and baseline quality? We should pick one and try to hash it out.
Yes, that would be desirable. The basic ideas, by themselves, could turn into a force-for-evil as easliy as a force-for-good. - Brya 05:55, 23 January 2010 (UTC)
Should we begin with baseline quality, then? We have two competing goals: finding a scheme that is quick and efficient enough that we can review and improve a huge number of articles, while simultaneously making it hard to exploit (especially by groups who have an agenda in seeing their POVs protected as "quality contributions").
Perhaps, although I haven't had any ideas pop up on how this could be done. However, it did strike me that the optimum way to give senior editors a chance would be to restrict gameability:
- Start by electing a cadre of ten (or twenty of whatever) editors with a proven commitment to core values (etc). These should be elected by a very wide margin of confidence (80% or better?).
- Any further senior editors are appointed by co-optation of the existing senior editors, who will also select for a proven commitment to core values (etc).
- Optional: Have a de-motion mechanism in place in case a senior editor fails to adhere to the core values (etc). Obviously this should be robust as every PoV-warrior would like to cry wolf at every opportunity.
This is not all that likely to be adopted (after all, Wikipedia is a democracy!), but it is simple and, if executed right, should maintain exclusivity. - Brya 04:42, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
Yeah, I think anything that's an election is a bad idea. Either you have some kind of open election process, in which case senior editors become about popularity. Or you do it like you suggested, where only a few people have voting rights, in which case it will be very exclusive. There isn't a snowball's chance in hell that the community will buy into that.
Much more palatable is to come up with some objective milestone. Something that any highly competent editor would be able to earn, and that would be difficult to game for editors who "don't get it".
(I don't think we could make it impossible to game. But we could make it hard. And then use a review process to deal with the rest of the problem cases.)
About exclusiveness, I am not all that pessimistic. After all, the ArbCom is also quite exclusive, as is the WMF board. There is a correlation between exclusivity and effectiveness.
What we want requires some fairly exclusive traits (commitment to core values, proven ability). In addition the senior editor must be willing to put in the time and effort to use those traits for the common goal. It looks to me that exclusivity is what is needed. If it is not exclusive then it won't work.
What is to be prevented is a closed-off, stale structure. There should always be the possibility for new blood. If that is a concern it would be possible to build in a term-of-office or an inactivity rule (the latter would likely be more effective).
Exclusivity may not be palatable, but it is pretty much inescapable. Otherwise, it becomes just another userbox to add to a userpage. - Brya 04:59, 25 January 2010 (UTC)
I agree with the general thrust of the recommendation but it would really help if better priorities could be given to the need for work within the wiki projects. Although I would like to participate more strongly, I am always overwhelmed by the enormous lists of articles needing attention. Could senior editors or others be given some kind of encouragement to sift through the lists to see what really deserves priority attention. Here some attention could be given to an articles status (or even existence) in other languages as well as to the number of views per month. Ipigott 16:39, 22 January 2010 (UTC)
The tendency to make lists is one of the major weak points of the projects: ten (or more) self-appointed managers for every worker. Still, some move towards actual prioritization is in evidence. - Brya 04:50, 24 January 2010 (UTC)
[Ipigott] I agree with you on that matter, such that:
...it would really help if better priorities could be given to the need for work within the wiki projects.
That is something I really want to see from the editors because I believe that articles that have a good background of the topic deserves to be researched a bit more (if not all the way exhaustive), and there are articles that really deserve to be in the spotlight, such that the articles have already met all the basic criteria (language, grammar, context, content), but, it shall be thoroughly researched so that it can attain at least a B-class article.
There is quite a lot of work to be done so that the articles that need improvement will have to be improved as soon as possible, but the first step into really making Wiki projects stand out is to monitor the editing process and making sure that the editors will routinely check articles that need such improvements.
marketing is today's world
the beta theme is excellent
but some people may like to have there favourite colour on-board for which they would like to work for hours.. i mean for editing the articles
A human being can work best ... if he is provided with the suitable habitat and.. desired habitat can be provided by providing him the options for working environment
Also we can have the mascot(representing knowledge) to promote the project...
We can write the motivational line on top of the site just to enhance the motivation for the users to add or edit the page..
Students and teacher both really have got time to read , understand , edit and add up to the topics that are present. thus they should perform as care-takers.
they are the most righteous people and only that student or teacher will come to the wikipedia who has got some interest in it and thus the probability of getting the righteous content is increased.
So programmes may be launched in universities and colleges to promote this feeling.
I am a biological daughter of Norman Mailer. My life has been private for about 46 years, although the family recognized me publically on WBAI radio on the Thanksgiving Sunday after my father's death. There is no link to that interview - and when attempting to show that I am actually his daughter on his wikipedia page people sometimes delete the information.
Norman Mailer had nine biological children. He raised, Matthew, Norris' son, also. I referred to him as informally adopted - and explain why in my comments in the daughter section.
I have written discussion information in the daughter area on that page today...and I have told them again to please at least read it. My purpose is not to vandalize this work - especially because I rarely use it, but sometimes do in other areas. I have found it slightly useful in finding out about my father. The link to the article referencing Norman Mailer saying that he had nine children is removed.
I noticed that there is an area that deals with people who are alive giving biographical information - and that the note that there is some sesitivity to this. I looked and wasn't quite sure whom to speak to within your organization as I received a link for the volunteers...but, I guess I would have to pick one - and I'm not quite sure who to pick - I did look at one of their pages but I couldn't find a link to put my submission for my question.
Any suggestions are appreciated.
On my myspace.com/NormanKingsleyMailer page - I did not reference wikipedia because of this information always changing on the page. (I have noted that the Mailer Society does have a link to it - I don't dismiss the link, I do however, question its content in the biography area.) I have however linked to Brittanica Encyclopedia - as they did not mention - what I consider salacious material - and they didn't even mention his children in their journalistic overview. I will definately consider speaking to Brittanica personally as I begin to promote the book that I am writing - regarding being Norman Mailer's daughter, however...as they may find accuracy a tool in their marketing. (Especially if this wikipedia content is not resolved.)
Sharyn Elander 198.105.8.162 20:55, 19 January 2010 (UTC)
The link to my wikipedia page did not show up on here, so here it is:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Contributions/Norman%27sdaughter
I'm known as Norman'sdaughter
Hi Sharyn,
This wiki is specifically about the long term goals for the Wikimedia movement; we don't deal with individual content disputes. For that, you'll have to take it to that particular wiki. In this case, you might try emailing info-en-q
wikimedia.org, the Wikipedia quality volunteer response team.
Best of luck,
I thought that the marketing of wikipedia was a long time goal...Brittanica is convincing me of their marketing, more and more.
Thanks for the link.
