The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia • Hacker News Board

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#181

Post by knowtheory » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:28 AM UTC

britta wrote: post #162

knowtheory wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The two rules you've outline are the primary reason i contribute very little to wikipedia. I can put together a well-sourced piece outlining the importance of a variety of subjects which i am indirectly involved in, and give a dispassionate description of its relevance to the community it serves and the world at large. Wikipedians, instead of saying "do that and have neutral 3rd parties check over your work", instead…

Wikipedia's conflict of interest rules are slightly more nuanced than "no contributions", thankfully: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Conflict_of_interest - the important part is "Editors with COIs who wish to edit responsibly are strongly encouraged to follow Wikipedia policies and best practices scrupulously. They are also encouraged to disclose their interest." Wikipedia also encourages editors with COIs to…

Thanks, i appreciate the clarification. I would add though, that finding that nuance requires a good deal of digging, and things like the article creator make no mention of any nuance. That may simply be the consequence of tools made by a variety of people, but nuance gets easily lost in the face of more stark strident language.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#182

Post by njharman » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:29 AM UTC

Wikipedia is a clique. But, the author is kind of a "clueless as to how to work with strangers, esp voluntary strangers" idiot.

The key to getting your way (in anything) is to work the system. Learn it's idiosyncrasies, etc. Complaining that it doesn't work the way you want it to is fail.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#183

Post by bane » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:30 AM UTC

geraldalewis wrote: post #132

nowarninglabel wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you miss the point, which is that the process is insanely opaque, which you note yourself by saying > if you get really involved in the site When I meet wikipedia people here in SF, they say, "Get involved!" Then, when I have tried to get involved, I get endless bureaucracy and everything eventually deleted. I've only managed to ever get 1 article on wikipedia (a bio of an expert in behavioral economics / neg…

> it's extremely difficult to participate, I ask honestly: why should it be easy to participate? > and I don't want to need to spend a bunch at Wikipedia reading countless rules trying to figure that out You don't want to spend time contributing, you just want readers to accept your contribution? I hope I'm misreading your intent, as it sounds like you feel you're above the vetting process? I've made some modest cont…

"I ask honestly: why should it be easy to participate?"

Because WP advertises itself as being easy to participate in.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#184

Post by bane » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:34 AM UTC

Dinoguy1000 wrote: post #166

gergles wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I ask honestly: why should it be easy to participate? Perhaps because the tagline of Wikipedia is "The free encyclopedia anyone can edit", not "The free encyclopedia anyone can edit after conducting 20 hours of intense self-study into the arbitrary bureaucracy and 'standards' that let us have a page for every Pokemon and Justine Ezarik's 300-page iPhone bill but not a page for a band that's won 15 local music festi…

Your first example is a little dated; Wikipedia hasn't had one article per Pokemon since around 2007, at the latest, when they were all merged into a handful of lists. Since then, a small number have been spun back out into articles on individual species or evolutionary lines, but only after careful consideration and considerable effort put into finding sources and establishing notability.

His point absolutely sill stands.

This http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bulbasaur can have a page but a local, but very popular band cannot.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#185

Post by bane » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:35 AM UTC

mikeleeorg wrote: post #169

geraldalewis wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> it's extremely difficult to participate, I ask honestly: why should it be easy to participate? > and I don't want to need to spend a bunch at Wikipedia reading countless rules trying to figure that out You don't want to spend time contributing, you just want readers to accept your contribution? I hope I'm misreading your intent, as it sounds like you feel you're above the vetting process? I've made some modest cont…

> I ask honestly: why should it be easy to participate? I agree with you, though I've also experienced the encouragement to participate as nowarninglabel has: >> When I meet wikipedia people here in SF, they say, "Get involved!" Then, when I have tried to get involved, I get endless bureaucracy and everything eventually deleted. I think this is where the frustration stems. Wikipedia, understandably, wants participati…

"It wants, and needs, _quality_ participation"

I think the word/phrase you are likely looking for is "fanatic dedication".

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#186

Post by barkingcat » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:36 AM UTC

sabat wrote: post #173

gwillen wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because 1) There is a policy against Americanizing British spellings for no reason (this is probably a good thing); 2) frequently experienced editors are much too harsh with new contributors and don't explain why (this is definitely a bad thing).

... which is completely ridiculous, for two reasons. One, Wikipedia is based in America, and so naturally its English should be consistently American. Two, modern English as spoken and written in England has grammar problems -- e.g., the insistence on using plurals for singular objects, such as corporations ("Shell Oil have announced ..."). Therefore, American English is obviously preferable.

The English uses plural for corporations because they are referring to the mass of entities that make up the corporation (including people, brands, products). I don't think this is a grammatical problem, but a societal/philosophical viewpoint on what a corporation is. If you are American, of course it seems weird, but within the context of English society, it is internally self consistent with English grammar.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#187

Post by zbowling » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:37 AM UTC

sullivandanny wrote: post #16

javert wrote: post #5

First of all, the author is wrong. Someone saying "Hey, I know that person, they're an expert on X," does not mean they belong in an encyclopedia. Furthermore, a sizeable group of people already had a discussion on whether the person meets Wikipedia's standards and decided that they do not. Now, the author feels entitled to barge in without learning anything about how Wikipedia actually works, and complain that it's…

I spent a half-hour just trying to find the right form to merely request that the page be reviewed for restoration. That form, as I explained in detail, doesn't actually work. There is no form for pages that have been deleted. There is a page only (as best I can tell) for pages that are under consideration for being deleted. Once they are gone, they're gone -- unless they were removed for the ill-defined uncontrovers…

You spent half an hour and never did submit it for review.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deletion_review#Activ...

There are no active discussions on this topic at all. This page took me 5 seconds to find with Google. I also found it on the link they sent you 3 times.

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#188

Post by [deleted] » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:56 AM UTC

gergles wrote: post #159

wpietri wrote: post #121

There's a lot of Wikipedia I think should be more transparent or more approachable. But deletion discussions aren't really one of them. Deciding what really fits in an encyclopedia isn't simple. Wikipedia has spent literally a decade working out a set of rules that balances utility, fairness, quality, and maintainability. Those rules will inevitably seem bureaucratic and opaque to people who haven't worked on a numbe…

You have deliberately ignored the most contentious part of the Wikipedia policy regarding articles, which is the "Notability" rule. Why an Internet-based encyclopedia with no editors, printed version, or quality control feels the need to limit articles to "notable subjects" is beyond me - it isn't like we're going to run out of electrons any time soon. In this particular case, it was quite clear this person existed a…

[deleted]

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#189

Post by bane » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 5:58 AM UTC

neilk wrote: post #114

philwelch wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The reason is because deletion is one of the single biggest areans for status games. See, from the outside, Wikipedia is an encyclopedia. And there's a community there to write an encyclopedia. Sensible, no? Actually, the community comes first and the encyclopedia is a side-effect. The community functions very politically, and very much like a game as well. The original intention might have been an encyclopedia with…

Dude, have you read WP:Notability? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability In one sentence: "If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article or stand-alone list." Notability isn't really that much of a judgment call. Also, it doesn't necessarily apply to the creation of new articl…

But you know as well as anybody that quite often in AfD notability is firmly established and an overzealous WP nerd will just simply ignore it because they feel the need to protect the electrons they believe have come to serve them in their virtual fiefdom.

And to be clear we're not talking about cases of obvious vandalism, there's plenty of cases where perfectly WP conformant edits are made, marked for deletion and then the inevitable shit fight where sources are provided clearly establishing notability are provided only to be tossed aside.

If a reason for ignoring the provided evidence is given it almost always surrounds the following terms in the sentence you quoted:

"significant", "reliable", "independent"

Re: The Closed, Unfriendly World of Wikipedia

#190

Post by _delirium » Thu, Nov 24, 2011, 6:00 AM UTC

knowtheory wrote: post #143

tptacek wrote: post #51

You can tell someone hasn't spent much time at AfD, the section of Wikipedia where people (anyone in the world, really) discuss whether articles should be deleted, by the outrage they express at the "arbitrariness" of Wikipedia's notability rules. Have you spent any time at AfD? Let me help you out: here's the AfD log for the week they killed "Jessie_Stricchiola": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_d…

The two rules you've outline are the primary reason i contribute very little to wikipedia. I can put together a well-sourced piece outlining the importance of a variety of subjects which i am indirectly involved in, and give a dispassionate description of its relevance to the community it serves and the world at large. Wikipedians, instead of saying "do that and have neutral 3rd parties check over your work", instead…

Even though there are cases where it works, I think those two rules are good heuristics that are fairly predictive of article quality/bias. Most articles written by academics and businessmen on themselves, their own research projects, or their companies are just not good articles. On the other hand, articles written by someone on an area they know about but not directly their work tend to be much better.

Part of it is intent, I think. I mostly talk to academics about it, and of those who don't regularly edit Wikipedia, some, when they hear that I edit Wikipedia, do want to learn how to use it to promote their work, or a research agenda they're closely involved in. If you come at it with that mindset, it's less likely that a neutral article will result. On the other hand, if you think of an area you know a lot about but is not directly tied to your work---i.e. is not the work of yourself, your supervisor, your specific sub-sub-field, or university---then it's much more likely that you might write a not-self-interested article genuinely intended to neutrally inform people.

That shouldn't be hard for most people to do. For example, there are such wide swaths of theoretical CS not yet covered well that, if your area is theoretical CS, there's no need to start with your own research or your advisor's research or the particular corner of the world in which you're personally involved in acrimonious within-field debates. Better to start with some important foundational work that you're closely familiar with but don't have strong personal investment in promoting. When I tell that to people, many lose interest, because to them, the self-promotion was why they were interested in the first place, while writing good articles about Theoretical Computing 101 (or 201) is just work. In which case, they may not have been coming with the right intentions...