Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-09-05/In the news

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Mischaracterization

"In a departure in tone from notorious comments from the company comparing Wikipedia to a public restroom, ...". This sentence is inaccurate. The "public restroom" comments were not from the company, but rather are the views of a specific individual, clearly speaking for himself. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 05:41, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

More on why new editors don't stay

Over-enthusiastic tagging for db-empty, db-nocontext, db-a7, etc. within seconds of creation certainly doesn't help, especially when the new editor gets a {{db-notice-multiple}} message on their brand new talk page (which they don't yet know how to use) telling them to "please see the page to see the reasons" when, if admins are on the ball, that page will often have been deleted before the new user sees those reasons. – Athaenara ✉ 07:11, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But before we all panic (too late!) one should consider the effects of the economy. Are we seeing something happening to this project, or is this a wider issue with all volunteer-effort projects? A comparison with checkins to large open-source projects might be interesting. Maury Markowitz (talk) 11:02, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm not feeling panic, it's more bemusement which very occasionally almost crosses an invisible line to frantic for the merest fraction of a second. Wiki-Love (Signpost article last month) yields some strange results. Dozens of new users are identifying themselves as biology students who are interested in snakes and hope to make Wikipedia even better, and I personally, this week, have been given a kitten and a brownie... – Athaenara ✉ 12:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I like kittens and brownies. I suspect the contributor downturn that makes so many run around screaming "the sky is falling" has a lot more to do with inevitability than "biting newbies". In terms of websites, Wikipedia has been around long enough to be considered a fairly mature, established site... meaning it's not new (or particularly exciting) anymore. Also, I suspect many people are recognizing that they're basically working to provide content for free. Volunteering is nice, but volunteering to write articles for a website isn't as personally fulfilling to many as volunteering for charities and seeing how your efforts directly help needy people and animals. It's also far more disheartening to volunteer your time, write an article and then have it vandalized by antisocial teenagers or simply bowdlerized by someone who is misinformed. On top of that, the economy is rotten, so people are focusing on doing work that earns income rather than doing free work that frequently goes unappreciated. To borrow an overused pop-culture term, Wikipedia has probably jumped the shark. - Burpelson AFB ✈ 14:13, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is going to thrive for years to come and many new users are going to stay and become good editors (the sky certainly isn't falling). I merely object to tactics which put additional hazards in the way of new users (that "see the page to see the reasons" thing really bugs me as it refers to pages which have been tagged for speedy deletion) and I am nonplussed by strategies which seem to be designed to attract children and very young adolescents. – Athaenara ✉ 03:22, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Having spent a modest time on WP, I am bemused at how much effort and talent has gone into policy and politics, but how the policy language presently is ultimately very relativistic and subjective, and how easy it would be to develop for/against arguments based on different parts of the policy corpus, let alone real issues. FeatherPluma (talk) 20:29, 13 September 2011 (UTC)

Copy edit required

In the section The Sum of ALL Human Knowledge?, towards the end of the first paragraph there is a close-quote mark after the word 'lives'. It is not indicated where the quote begins. Can someone put in the missing quotation mark? --bodnotbod (talk) 13:08, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Bialik's figures

It is unclear to me whether the figures cited/commented on by Carl Bialik apply to English Wikipedia only, or what the source of the figures might be. Can anyone assist with answers, please. Regards, Peter S Strempel | Talk 13:14, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Sensationalistic journalism... Wikipedia "sucks"? Really?

That article was quite worthless. First his idea wasn't even well stated. I suppose I see his point and agree with him, but it's a question of how Wikipedia could be better. To say Wikipedia "sucks" is such a gross overstatement that it's unethical. He was just going for a sensationalistic title. I'm getting sick of people who probably don't even have but a surface understanding of the site attacking it. Jason Quinn (talk) 18:31, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Someone's got an axe to grind. First of all, he's missing the point entirely -- if you see something important missing from Wikipedia, you don't go write somewhere about how it's missing... you add it. Second of all, no one ever claimed Wikipedia was complete. How does being one of the top-ranked sites on Google mean that we must instantaneously create every article that everyone might ever want to look for? How could we even do that? Does he seriously think it's possible to create an encyclopedia of all human knowledge, on demand? Powers ^T 21:20, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

I probably shouldn't do this, but I believe the attempted rebuttals are missing his core critique. He is making a standard somewhat sophisticated criticism that Wikipedia's coverage is heavily skewed to what interests the young white male demographic, and that's an enormous failing of an encyclopedia - "For some reason I can tell you all about the life of one of my favorite wrestlers, WWE Superstar William Regal, but nothing about Gladys Gooding, Vincent X. Flaherty, and the Brooklyn Symphony.". And it's not the responsibility of people who point out this well-known flaw to remedy it. That's a deflection tactic. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:43, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

In fact, instead of arguing back to me, why not do what was recommended, and devote the time instead to writing the articles he notes as missing? -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:55, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Ah, yes, the default debate-ending tactic: "Go improve the encyclopedia!" Why is it my job to write the articles he wants to read? I haven't volunteered at WP:REQUEST. Britannica doesn't include an article on Gladys Gooding; is that also an enormous failing? Powers ^T 23:00, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

Well, he certainly didn't volunteer either. You seemed to think it was his job to write the articles, which is something of a catch-22. Are we then going to argue over what seems to me to be a prosaic difference, that Britannica is not as beholden to the interests of the young white male demographic? (n.b. I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with WWE, but the point still stands that it does show where the interests are focused) -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 23:18, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

But he's missing the point of Wikipedia, which is to be a user-edited encyclopedia. He didn't volunteer, but he also doesn't have the right to say "I want to read about X topic; write me an article" -- which is essentially what he did. The entire wiki ethos is "if you see a problem, fix it". He saw a problem but wants someone else to fix it.
As for the WWE, I'm not sure that's true. All it shows is that at least one person was more interested in modern professional wrestling than in historical Dodgers esoterica. We do have a systemic bias here, and I won't deny that it's at least partially slanted in the direction you state, but the more significant bias here is toward current events and away from historical ones. That's at least partially the result of accessibility of sources (which I note the author didn't provide, either), rather than a demographic issue. Powers ^T 23:49, 6 September 2011 (UTC)

The formulation you are using makes coverage criticism invalid by definition. I just pointed this out before. Whenever a critic notes an article failure of Wikipedia, it can then be deflected by attempting to make the topic about his/her failure to fix the failure. It's a tactic with obvious appeal, but unconvincing to those who do not subscribe to the catch-22 formulation in the first place. That is, he has every right to say "Wikipedia's failure is exemplified by the following imbalances in coverage ..." -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 00:02, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

Well I admit I didn't read it that way at first. He seemed to have a tone of "Someone should write about these subjects". He could have framed his argument as you did, that of criticism of the scope, but instead he focused on three particular articles and said the encyclopedia isn't comprehensive until they were included. But I also don't think it's too much to ask people who show an interest in our coverage gaps to lift a finger or two toward mending those gaps. Not once in his article does he even acknowledge that he could write those articles. To an extent he is the reason for our bias -- people with his interests haven't been editing our encyclopedia enough.
Furthermore, his recommendation that Google drop our search ranking because we don't have articles on certain topics is puzzling to say the least. What sources would he rank more highly? Wikipedia may not be comprehensive, but what would he recommend as a more comprehensive source? A search for "Gladys Gooding" isn't going to return a Wikipedia result until we actually have an article, so why should that affect what our ranking is for "William Regal"? Is there any reference work that includes both of them? Powers ^T 13:33, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

In reading a column, it's important to keep in mind that they're typically written with constraints on space and attention, with colloquial phrasing. So arguments are often made sketchily and with anecdotes, in a format which is quite different from the expected logical precision and extensive explanations found in more scholarly settings. While much mischief can be done here, it is sometimes helpful to apply a bit of the principle of charity when it seems reasonable to do so. Thus, when you say "he focused on three particular articles and said the encyclopedia isn't comprehensive until they were included", the idea is not about those specific three articles in particular, but what their absence (compared to voluminous WWE coverage) indicates about the failings of Wikipedia. We're also going around the deflection yet again - it's irrelevant if he could write them or not. He has no moral obligation to do so, even if he could. The Wikipedian attempt to impose on critics some sort of affirmative duty to fix Wikipedia, has little basis outside of the promoters of Wikipedia. I'm not sure of his Google point, that part of the article is unclear even to me. But I think he's saying something along the lines of it being given too much prominence by Google as "universal" source, when it's clearly not. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

The point that you seem to be missing is that we are all Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not like other encyclopedias; we are an encyclopedia that anyone can edit. That means the whole world shares responsibility for helping to create it. Obviously, not everyone has time to help, and that's fine. But it's not at all out of line to ask, when someone points out a flaw, "what are you doing to help fix it"? That's the whole premise behind {{sofixit}}. If the answer is "I don't have time to help right now," that's fair enough. But the question is not at all out of bounds. Powers ^T 12:51, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe I'm missing a point, rather than rejecting it. The fact that it's possible for someone to do something does not by any means automatically morally obligate them to do so. To say (my emphasis) "the whole world shares responsibility ..." is unfounded. Nobody has a responsibility to fix Wikipedia's failings simply because Wikipedia would like them to do so. I heard what you said. But you aren't responding to my reply that there's no basis to it. One might just as well say "We all must worship the Flying Spaghetti Monster". -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Perhaps "responsibility" is too strong a word, but I think the basic point stands: a wiki is not a platform where someone says "there's a problem, please fix it", but rather "here's a problem, I'll go fix it". The author was addressing a point to Wikipedia as an entity, but there's no editorial board or managers or any single authority who can do anything systematic about his complaint. His audience, rather, is the group of people who can edit the encyclopedia -- which means he was addressing himself. Powers ^T 11:39, 12 September 2011 (UTC)

I'm going disagree with Seth Finkelstein on his explanation -- but in a subtle way. (And maybe I'll even be disagreeing with Mendelson here.) I'd say Wikipedia's coverage is heavily skewed in what the amazingly small group of dedicated editors happen to write about. To explain his example, the reason that there's an article about WWE Superstar William Regal & not about Gladys Gooding, Vincent X. Flaherty, or the Brooklyn Symphony is that no one has gotten around to writing one. Those articles may be missing because of the interests & biasses of the small group of people who write Wikipedia article (who are predominantly male, middle-class, & living in Europe or North America) -- or because someone intended to, had it on his (or her) list, but something prevented them from writing them. Say, ran out of time & never got back to the list, or a reference needed went missing, or ... that Person from Porlock paid a visit. There are a number of articles that exist -- important ones -- solely because I took the time to write them, yet equally important subjects lack articles simply because I haven't gotten to writing them. Nor has anyone else. (But these other people have the time to engage in some truly lame edit wars.) I find it discouraging, sometimes, to find holes like these simply because I haven't gone back to fill them. Or to find an article I threw together in a few minutes practically untouched years later -- sometimes with obvious errors or typos that anyone who took a moment to actually read the article would be compelled to fix. -- llywrch (talk) 05:11, 7 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the author misunderstands what Wikipedia is in a broad sense. The homepage states, "Welcome to Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia that anyone can edit." If Wikipedia were only a database, or only a news outlet, or only an encyclopedia, I could understand his argument: "Why aren't you covering important topic X?" But an entire half of what is Wikipedia is being trivialized here. Wikipedia is not just content distribution of important articles – to whoever they may be important – it is a platform to create articles as well. His complaint seems to be a step to his realization that Wikipedia is a living encyclopedia, and less of a complaint about what Wikipedia actually is. --Odie5533 (talk) 01:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

To the extent that Wikipedia holds itself out as an encyclopedia, it's perfectly reasonable to critique it as such. I'd say that the "platform" part is not being trivialized, but rather not being considered as an excuse. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 06:57, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Wikipedia is exactly what everyone says it is: brilliant, atrocious, shallow, deep, etc. Any undertaking in which there is practically no entry-level requirement will reflect the biases and prejudices of only those who show up. Considering that there may only be 40,000 regular, committed editors, no one should really expect a work reflective of all human knowledge, wisdom or professionalism. Simply put, Wikipedia is exactly what it is (what we make of it), no more and no less. What 'ought' to be is irrelevant until we make it so. Peter S Strempel | Talk 07:35, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I agree with you on the "ought" part. Unfortunately, realistically, that's different from an "is" part. There's a certain two-step that goes on, where Wikipedia is greatly hyped, yet when that hyped is debunked, the critic is then told the hype somehow doesn't count, or worse they somehow have an obligation to fix Wikipedia (which they, the critic, aren't living up to!). It may be unreasonable from multiple perspectives, but it does go on. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:41, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Not disagreeing with you on that, Seth, but when children ask you why you can't fix all the injustices in the universe you usually have to be a bit forgiving and indulge them in their fantasies lest you seem churlish about telling them: 'Listen, kid, what goddam fantasy world are you living in? This ain't the way the world works, and I'll be damned if I waste my time taking directions from a little snotnose like you.'

The old Born Again ploy of making you responsible for someone else's idealism is just too jejune to take seriously. Don't let it eat at you. Wikipedia is also (in addition to everything I've already listed) exactly what you'd like to do here, not what someone else thinks you ought to do here. The former is the natural way voluntary effort is provided. The latter is called slavery. And finally, defending flaws in any endeavour by deflection is an explicit admission the flaws exist, so I'd think your argument is accepted by even its most vocal detractors. That doesn't stop any of us who are still here from plugging away at the stuff we care about or have an interest in, though, does it. For what it's worth, I think your opinion and others like it are necessary to prevent the faithful and the gullible from believing their own bullshit about Wikipedia as a sacred cow. Regards, Peter S Strempel | Talk 23:24, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

I think the first part of this article has been discussed enough to admint: a community of voluteers doesn't like it very much when some other people criticise their undertaking, even if the flaws are evident and, as Peter wrote, unavoidable in some extent. Still, the title and the tone is somewhat bloodcurling. However the secord part of said article doesn't seem to get enough attention. The assumption that wiki pages shouldn't be ranked so high in Google because Wikipedia is not comprehensive enough, is like utter bollocks. Why not? If it exists, it could provide relevant info to a search request. If it doesn't, by definition it won't show up in any search request. So what's the problem? Viktorhauk (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2011 (UTC)

"Wikipedia Art" to return in hotel room form?

Great; an exercise in transgressive vandalism will be immortalized once more by the "art is immune from mortal bonds" crowd. (Sorry, Prof. Stern; I'd say the same thing to your face.) --Orange Mike | Talk 20:06, 7 September 2011 (UTC) (at UWM where one of the perpetrators teaches)

"Vandalism" seems harsh to me. I'd say though they were technically in the wrong, they were operating in good faith. The logical problem is really something like Wikipedia article "notability" can't/shouldn't be recursive (i.e. articles need to have a pre-existing reason before they can exist, recursion isn't notable in and of itself). But I don't think their misunderstanding of this principle was malicious. Many people misunderstand Wikipedia "notability" in less convoluted ways. They just happened to be people who thought that their favorite applied minor philosophical paradox was worth a Wikipedia page, rather than their favorite garage band. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 07:07, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

Whereas I perceive their attitude as being analogous to "I am not a mere vandal, I am an artist creating ART when I tag your house or garage with my graffiti art without your consent; why are you being such a poopybutt about it, man?" --Orange Mike | Talk 13:32, 8 September 2011 (UTC)

See their statements such as "Since the work itself manifested as a conventional Wikipedia page, would-be art editors were required to follow Wikipedia’s enforced standards of quality and verifiability; any changes to the art had to be published on, and cited from, ‘credible’ external sources: ...". That doesn't sound like graffiti to me. More like missing just one part of the restrictions about notability. -- Seth Finkelstein (talk) 22:30, 8 September 2011 (UTC)