User:DGG/talks/Princeton

IMPROVING WIKIPEDIA

'''A presentation at Princeton University on October 13, 2010,

by David Goodman (User:DGG)'''

email: dgoodman AT princeton.edu

Why is Wikipedia used

 * Importance--by far the most used online encyclopedia-- and the most reference source in the world -- over 338 million unique visitors a month Comparisons
 * Language reach: over 260 languages Statistics
 * Geographic reach
 * Extensive subject coverage -- 16 million articles, 5 million illustrations and media files

How did it get to this status?

 * Comprehensive modern encyclopedia Five pillars
 * Neutral point of view
 * Wikipedia is free content (CC 3.0-BY-SA) that anyone can edit
 * Open community and open community processes
 * Wikipedia does not have firmly fixed rule

Overall organization

 * Wikimedia Foundation: $9 million/yr (45% for technology), 50 paid staff.
 * MediaWiki
 * Strategy
 * Commons (media)
 * Projects by type and Language:
 * by type: Wikipedia, Wiktionary, Wikinews, Wikisource, Wikiquote, Wikibooks (textbooks & manuals), Wikiversity (instructional materials)
 * by Language: English, German, ... Latin, Esperanto (Complete list) not Klingon
 * National chapters
 * Germany
 * UK
 * France
 * (40 more)
 * India
 * (potential US chapters)
 * New York City WP:Meetup/NYC next, on Sunday October 16, 2010

English Wikipedia (enWP)

 * 3.4 million articles, 356,000 active users
 * open immediate editing, even without registration
 * 1000 new articles a day
 * subject WikiProjects, Workgroups & Taskforces): Chemistry, Military History, ... subject list
 * function Wikiprojects: Copyediting, Categorization project list
 * Processes
 * Maintenance
 * Deletion
 * Administration: Conduct and Content WP:Administrators' noticeboard
 * WP:Dispute resolution
 * Reference Reference desk
 * Assistance

Inhibiting

 * 1) Lack of assured reliability
 * 2) Vandalism of article content
 * 3) Incomplete coverage
 * 4) Weak coverage in many academic fields
 * 5) frequent lack of adequate referencing
 * 6) Instability of article content
 * 7) Impermanence of the project as a while
 * 8) Pressure groups & cabals
 * 9) Cultural bias
 * 10) Recentist
 * 11) Anglocentric
 * 12) Political inclinations

Fixes

 * 1) Lack of assured reliability: analyses of reliability, article talk pages, and projects to improve quality
 * 2) Vandalism of article content: active removal of vandalism by large editor base, and passive removal by filters
 * 3) Incomplete coverage: increased diversity of contributors
 * 4) Weak coverage in many academic fields: increased academic participation and class projects
 * 5) frequent lack of adequate referencing: growing insistence on sourcing; increasing availability of good sourcing
 * 6) Instability of article content: ability to link to specific versions
 * 7) Impermanence of the project as a while: mirrors
 * 8) Pressure groups & cabals wider knowledgeable participation
 * 9) Cultural bias
 * 10) Recentist wider knowledgeable participation
 * 11) Anglocentric wider knowledgeable participation
 * 12) Political inclinations wider knowledgeable participation

Additional encouraging factors

 * 1) Ability to see edit history
 * 2) Talk page discussions
 * 3) International contributor base and links to other language Wikipedias

Inhibiting

 * Anti-elitism
 * Lack of respect for credentials
 * anonymity
 * Demographics (youth) & anti-academic attitude
 * Amateurism
 * Lack of seriousness
 * Pervasive low quality
 * Mismatch with academe
 * Lack of respect in academic world
 * Lack of clear authorship
 * Inability to draw original conclusions
 * Cooperative authorship
 * Distinctive prose style

Encouraging

 * Availability of support in workgroups
 * Help with class projects School and university projects
 * Special initiatives (such as the Public policy Initiative)
 * Teaching influence
 * Extremely wide readership
 * Opportunity to summarize for general audience

Standard factors for reliability of sources in general

 * 1) recognized (within its limits)
 * 2) reputation
 * 3) credentials of authors
 * 4) Controls for quality
 * 5) Format and medium: online, print, etc.
 * 6) Technical quality
 * 7) Degree of detail
 * 8) Freedom from bias
 * 9) Currency of information
 * 10) Confirmation by other known reliable sources
 * 11) Sources given for information
 * 12) Reliability of sources
 * 13) Appropriateness of sources
 * 14) Currency of sources

Additional factors applying to Wikipedia

 * 1) Multiple ways to judge quality "How to Judge the Quality of a WIkipedia Page" by Tim Farley
 * 2) Large number of contributors
 * 3) Varied background of contributors
 * 4) Education
 * 5) Interest
 * 6) Geography
 * 7) Language knowledge
 * 8) Specialist contributors
 * 9) WikiProjects and Workgroups
 * 10) Screening of contributions
 * 11) Recent changes
 * 12) Watchlists
 * 13) New Page feed
 * 14) Login to start pages
 * 15) Edit filters
 * 16) New Pages
 * 17) Patrolled pages for Biography of Living people (forthcoming)
 * 18) Quality ratings: featured articles
 * 19) Deletion
 * 20) Blocking
 * 21) Policy: Reliable Sources
 * 22) Policy: Not Censored
 * 23) Edit histories
 * 24) OTRS

Negative factors affecting reliability

 * 1) Concentration of editors on popular topics
 * 2) Anonymity
 * 3) Impermanence

Getting Started

 * First Step: Find an article, Look at its history., Look at its talk page.
 * Second Step: Edit an article, such as JoAnne Stubbe
 * Third step: Start a missing article: example: Masayasu Nomura, from List of members of the National Academy of Sciences (Biochemistry)


 * Contributing to Wikipedia, WP:FIRST, WP:MARKUP, Manual of Style, WP:CITE
 * Search, WP:SEARCH
 * Userpages: for example, User:LaraLove. User:GlassCobra, ... WP:USER
 * User Contributions, All Logs, Watchlist
 * Preferences

Rules

 * WP:SIMPLE, WP:NPOV, WP:V, WP:N, WP:RS, WP:NOT, WP:COI
 * WP:COPYRIGHT
 * WP:GLOSSARY

Organization

 * Category:Books. WP:CATEGORY, List of biology topics, WP:LIST
 * WP:REDIRECT
 * WP:WIKIPROJECT, WP:LIBRARIANS
 * WP:PORTAL, for example, Portal:Narnia, Portal:China

Quality

 * WP:DEL, WP:CSD
 * (Administrator Login WP:ADMIN)
 * Category:CSD, WP:PRODSUM, WP:AFD, WP:DELREV
 * Becoming an administrator WP:RFA
 * Further Layers WP:Bureaucrat, WP:CHECKUSER, WP:OVERSIGHT,WP:ARBCOM, WP:STEWARDS, WP:WMF, WP:JIMBO


 * WP:DISPUTE, WP:ANI, WP:BLOCK, WP:PROTECT
 * Enforcement: User messages
 * Policies: WP:NPA, WP:BOLD, WP:IAR
 * Special WP:NEWPAGES, WP:New pages patrol WP:New pages patrol/patrolled pages-- All Pages, Users, Recent Changes
 * Top edits
 * WP:BFAQ (guide to corporate contributors) and WP:Conflict of interest/Noticeboard and WT:SPAM
 * Wayback Machine archive

Resources

 * Key Free resources for Wikipedia
 * Google, Google News Archive, Google Scholar, Google Books
 * WorldCat
 * PubMed
 * Key non-free Library Resources for Wikipedians
 * JSTOR
 * Project MUSE
 * Web of Science
 * Scopus
 * Ulrich's
 * Readers' Guide and other Wilson indexes (or Ebsco or Gale, or Proquest, etc).

Key resources

 * How Wikipedia Works by Phoebe Ayers, Charles Matthews, and Ben Yates (also available in print)
 * the free online version of Wikipedia: The Missing Manual by John Broughton (also available in print)
 * "Ten Simple Rules for Editing Wikipedia" by Darren W. Logan, Massimo Sandal, Paul P. Gardner, Magnus Manske1, Alex Bateman in PLOS Computational Biology (2010) 6(9): e1000941. doi:10.1371/journal.pcbi.1000941
 * "Information quality discussions in Wikipedia" by Besiki Stvilia, Michael B Twidale, Les Gassner, & Linda C. Smith (2005)
 * "Who The Hell Writes Wikipedia, Anyway?" by Henry Blodget, Jan. 3, 2009 ''Business Insider
 * books about Wikipedia