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Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

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Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#91

Post by benj111 »

commoner wrote: post #51
ndnxhs wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia does a lot to prevent new users participating. The mediawiki software is very confusing and has a lot of different functionality crammed in to the same page edit tool that doesn't even make sense. I attemped to create a page about a slightly obscure file format with all the information I had found while developing with it. I linked to all the sources I found that helped me understand it and my submission wa…

The file format you tried to write about isn't notable enough to have its own article in Wikipedia. The notability guidelines are there to prevent people from writing about things that can't be verified by reliable sources, and it's a mechanism to help ensure that articles are accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability While not every topic belon…

I think the notability guidelines are wrong headed.

There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to whether something is deemed to be 'notable'.

Worse, you put off people like the grandparent who actually attempt to contribute.

We all want accurate and reliable sources, but why not work with people, rather than just deleting? Or why not a 2 stage process. Have a staging area for pages that aren't good enough. Then promoted to wikipedia proper when good enough?

What happens in X years time, when that file format is 'notable'? You've lost the person most inclined to write the document, and lost historical context from a living document.

The BBC had a habit in its early days of reusing 'old' film. What could have been a treasure trove is now lost. I cant help feeling wikipedia is being similarly short sighted.

/rant (not aimed at you btw)

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#92

Post by DanBC »

DougBTX wrote: post #88
NeedMoreTea wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So simple it's presented on a page with dozens of subsections. It should present a simple version like your 5 points and link to the longer version for the few outlier cases or rejections. It's repeated for every single policy page - they are enormously long and complex for every single topic. There is nothing remotely like a friendly beginners guide to helping - be that fixing some poor language, or correcting a mis…

The first paragraph is: > This page in a nutshell: When choosing an account name, do not choose names which may be offensive, misleading, disruptive, or promotional. In general, one username should represent one person. Seems fine to have the sussinct description at the top followed by details on the same page. If there really are lots of people that have issues picking a username (these policies seem petty typical s…

I don't seem to have been clear enough: it's not just the policy, but the ways in which the policy is applied.

For a few years the new username lists were trawled by vandal patrols and there was a lot of biting of newbies -- so much that "don't bite the newbies" had to be added to the policy pages.

For example: the section on "confusing usernames". This was added to avoid people suggesting they were a bot account if they weren't a bot account, or were an admin if they weren't an admin, or to prevent impersonation.

So, if you register as "kjwenflkjclnaksdnalmsd" that's confusing, but it's not against the policy. Except a lot of people reporting usernames hadn't bothered to read the policy, and so they were just reporting names like that as confusing. For sometime people using their real names in a non-latin script were being blocked because their name was "confusing". This again led to changes in policy.

What WP really needs to do (and what they've actually done) is have a bot that checks usernames and places them on a list with descriptions of the problems, and warnings about why it might not be a problem. (There are differences between "WhitePower88" and "MartyJenkins88") -- and then have people checking the list.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#93

Post by Sean1708 »

ndnxhs wrote: post #72
ogrisel wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Putting a blog post would already be a positive contribution. Then reference it a bit, for instance by answering relevant questions on stackoverflow and linking to it to give more comprehensive details. Over time your page will naturally get referenced by Google and other search engines. Too bad it's not accepted in Wikipedia, but as long as the information is easily findable and organized as an easy to read and comp…

The problem with a blog post is others can't improve it to add more info or fix mistakes. The wiki format is perfect for this.

What about a Github Gist (or similar) or an actual code repo somewhere (wouldn't necessarily have to have actual code, could just be a readme)?

Also out of interest, what is the file format?

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#94

Post by veddox »

dyadic wrote: post #33
Kaveren wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know if you're willing to make a 3rd comment, but I'm trying to understand the lurker mindset from the perspective of someone who posts quite actively. Is is just that you don't care enough to reply, feel like your opinions are unpopular, don't feel like you have anything to say, or something else?

I check the site maybe once every couple of days, and I don't comment or reply because it usually seems like the post is "old" by then and the discussion has died down. Your comment now is marked "5 minutes ago" and seems game for a reply, but later today when it's "5 hours ago" or longer, I'd feel like it has expired and any reply would be lost and never seen.

I follow a discussion I'm in for at least a day. HN commenting is asynchronous - it's not a chat conversation. Work hours, time zones and other "hazards" of modern Internet life all intervene...

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#95

Post by TeMPOraL »

kokokokoko wrote: post #14

It's a question of motive. Once the immediate payment motive is removed, what other motives do people have for the content they create online? When reading something online I always ask myself what motive the person had for writing it.

> what other motives do people have for the content they create online?

Often the best kind. They want to share a joke, or a piece of knowledge. I found this kind of material is of much better quality than paid one.

Of course, sometimes we don't know if the "payment motive" really was removed. Marketers and paid trolls do receive money for posting to on-line communities.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#97

Post by commoner »

benj111 wrote: post #91
commoner wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The file format you tried to write about isn't notable enough to have its own article in Wikipedia. The notability guidelines are there to prevent people from writing about things that can't be verified by reliable sources, and it's a mechanism to help ensure that articles are accurate. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Notability https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Verifiability While not every topic belon…

I think the notability guidelines are wrong headed. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to whether something is deemed to be 'notable'. Worse, you put off people like the grandparent who actually attempt to contribute. We all want accurate and reliable sources, but why not work with people, rather than just deleting? Or why not a 2 stage process. Have a staging area for pages that aren't good enough. Then promot…

That staging area exists, and it's called "Articles for creation" (AfC). The website directs new editors to the staging area for their first article.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creatio...

Drafts in AfC will not be deleted for being non-notable, but they will also not be indexed by search engines.

When a draft is ready to be published, a reviewer looks over it and ensures that it is properly cited, before moving it to the encyclopedia proper.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#98

Post by veddox »

Nice to see some numbers, but not in any ways surprising.

The phenomenon is not limited to the Internet. In any group of humans, you will always have a small subgroup of active members and a "silent majority". It doesn't matter whether you look at nation states, community churches or your local school's parent-teacher organisation. In general, the larger a group is, the smaller the percentage of active members will be.

Voluntary organisations often expend a lot of effort into getting their "inactives" more involved; some manage this better than others. But somehow, being a passive consumer is the default mode of most people in most circumstances. Human nature, I guess...

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#99

Post by commoner »

DanBC wrote: post #90
yesenadam wrote: post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? Is that one of the main problems with wikipedia? Even in the top 20?!

Biting newbies is one of the main problems for Wikipedia, and the hostile way the username policy is applied is one example of biting newbies. And it's really inconsistant: depending who's looking at the name the new user may get instantly blocked permanently; may have to go through RFC/usernames, may have to discuss with admins on usernames for admin attention or on ANI, may have to discuss with admins on their user…

The jargon doesn't help newbies either. Newbies (and HN readers, for that matter) can't be expected to know what "RFC" or "ANI" means.

Re: Most of What We Read on the Internet is Written by Insane People

#100

Post by benj111 »

commoner wrote: post #97
benj111 wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the notability guidelines are wrong headed. There doesn't seem to be rhyme or reason to whether something is deemed to be 'notable'. Worse, you put off people like the grandparent who actually attempt to contribute. We all want accurate and reliable sources, but why not work with people, rather than just deleting? Or why not a 2 stage process. Have a staging area for pages that aren't good enough. Then promot…

That staging area exists, and it's called "Articles for creation" (AfC). The website directs new editors to the staging area for their first article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Articles_for_creatio... Drafts in AfC will not be deleted for being non-notable, but they will also not be indexed by search engines. When a draft is ready to be published, a reviewer looks over it and ensures that it is properly…

That's getting closer to what I was thinking, but that's for new editors, not new articles.

"Only experienced editors should ever create an article from scratch. Others should first create a draft page and build the article there."

And as you say they aren't indexed.

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