Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2012-02-06/In the news


 * "... he cites the professionally-written Encyclopaedia Britannica as superior at least in respect of its "traditional excellence in scholarly nuance and quality of writing ...." Time for a WP/EB project: Review EB from page 1 to the end and make sure WP has an article on every subject covered by EB. While that wouldn't guarantee the same quality of writing, it would be something to build on. Tom Reedy (talk) 14:43, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * An effort on these lines has existed for about seven years, WikiProject_Missing_encyclopedic_articles (formerly 2004 Encyclopedia topics). We have to be cautious about a formally systematic effort to do so, as the list of Britannica's articles is itself a copyrighted item. In any event we're years past playing catchup with Britannica, and a great deal more mileage is to be had comparing our coverage against non English-language and non-Western encyclopedias (and other reference works) to ameliorate the under-representation of subjects to do with particularly asia, africa, and south america. -- Finlay McWalterჷTalk 18:04, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * He's probably right about Wikipedia lacking, "long, complicated interpretations exploring subtly interacting historical causes in carefully contextualized analyses or beautifully flowing narratives." But how often is this needed for describing bus stations, Pokemon characters or football matches? Where Britannica remains ahead is in the consistency of their quality. Wikipedia has some brilliant material, plenty of decent quality articles, and truck loads of absolute rubbish. Will we ever approach the consistency of a commercial encyclopedia? Is it even possible with a "crowd-sourced" work? Regards, RJH (talk) 23:39, 14 February 2012 (UTC)


 * "That said, the crowdsourced encyclopaedia is for Cronon..." Could you avoid using this insulting word "crowdsourced"? This adjective implies that the subject it modifies is created by exploiting an agglomeration of strangers, to whom no responsibility or affiliation is acknowledged. Unless that is the official position of the WMF, that it has no interest in the well-being or interests in the contributors to its projects. -- llywrch (talk) 16:46, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I was surprised to read this comment and a consultation of the dictionary definitions at hand confirms why – the word has no such negative connotations in its general use. The implication of exploitation seems idiosyncratic; only in your mind does the fire burn.   Skomorokh   21:32, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I'm afraid your dictionaries are in error on this point. (All reference works have errors in them, just as all software has bugs. This does not mean either is unreliable, but that the best anyone can do is to minimize mistakes in one's work as much as possible; some people are able to make notably fewer mistakes than others -- which is why they are considered experts. And why experts can be wrong.) My assertion of the pejorative connotation of "crowdsourcing" comes from this comment by Evan Prodromou at SXSW, as recorded by Angela Beasley a few years back. Unfortunately, Angela has taken down her blog, forcing me to rely on its mirror at archive.org, which may indicate an even larger problem a work. What was once a pejorative term for exploiting the good will of others has now come to be an accepted business practice: the offloading of work a company is being paid for upon online volunteers who will do it for negligible or no cost. The ideal of online communities has thus been overrun by the drive to maximize short-term profits over long-term benefits. No wonder it is getting difficult for non-profit or charitable groups to attract online volunteer help! -- llywrch (talk) 23:06, 8 February 2012 (UTC)
 * There's certainly interesting arguments to be made about the ethics of adopting a model whereby volunteers do the work previously done by paid professionals, and there are certainly cases where the word used to describe such models are irrevocably tinged with negative connotations – big society comes to mind – but I don't accept the charge that crowdsourcing is toxified.


 * It's all well and good to assert that the dictionaries are wrong, but usually such assertions are successful only when supported by appeals to etymology or popular use. Neither "crowd" nor "source" are value-laden, at least to me, and the terms' rise to popularity on the basis of the Surowieckian notion of the positive uses of aggregation does not seem at all critical. I took a look at the Google News Archives results for "Wikipedia" and "crowdsourcing"/"crowdsourced" to see if the dictionaries were simply at odds with how the term has come to be used and found only innocuous employment (emphases mine) – "The term “crowdsourcing” – solving problems or completing tasks using an open call to a community – likely evokes Wikipedia and other benevolent ventures more so than it does corporate innovation. But crowdsourcing, or open innovation, is also beginning to be used by traditional organizations to solve problems and generate new ideas.", "Newt Gingrich's team appears to be working overtime to tweak the candidate's Wikipedia page to paint a more positive picture of his past—and the editors of the crowdsourced online encyclopedia have taken notice", "Indeed, the six-week-long experiment may push the scientific envelope, adding a public health coup to the many examples of successful crowdsourcing projects (for a list, see Wikipedia, the crowdsourced encyclopedia).", "From elections in Brazil to mapping power in Chile to a stand-in for Wikipedia in the United States, journalists throughout the Americas are using crowdsourcing to cover the news. The Americas Society/Council of the Americas (AS/COA) noted that crowdsourcing, or turning to a large group of citizens to perform a task that normally would be done by an individual, has "become a popular method for citizen participation" that allows "users to report crimes anonymously...due in part to violence against witnesses and journalists.""


 * These are just the first few relevant stories from the past fortnight, but all of them seem either neutral or complimentary of crowdsourcing as a model. You're going to need to do better than one six year old speech to convince me that this is one of those rare cases where the dictionaries are all wrong and the truth has only been revealed to online newspaper article commenters...  Skomorokh   23:28, 8 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Prompted by llywrch's comment: "What is beyond the abilities of the amateur encyclopaedians, he confidently declared, are '[l]ong, complicated interpretations'"... Could you avoid the sardonic use of this word "confidently"? Earlier, you wrote "Cronon declared it to be a gateway to knowledge for millions"... are you saying Professor Cronon was less confident when he complimented our efforts at Wikipedia? :-)  67.101.5.216 (talk) 19:04, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Neither assumption is warranted, I am afraid, though I am flattered by the keen interest in the minutiae of phrasing.  Skomorokh   19:19, 10 February 2012 (UTC)


 * I don't think Cronon is unique among academics in endorsing (with qualifications of course) the use of Wikipedia. Haven't you had stories on others in the Signpost? Perhaps we need an article List of academics endorsing the use of Wikipedia?  Smallbones (talk) 20:02, 10 February 2012 (UTC)
 * I see no reason to believe he is unique in that respect; a search of the archives should turn up prior stories for your perusal.  Skomorokh   20:10, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Paid editing
 * "Despite the editing community's consistent rejection of efforts to prohibit paid editing (cf. Wikipedia:Paid editing)" ...?!? I think the writer got lost in the double negatives there, because the link actually shows consistent support of prohibitting paid editing. DreamGuy (talk) 18:01, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * Further parsing of the sentence suggests that the line wasn't just poorly written but is claiming something as factual that the link provided shows to be false. DreamGuy (talk) 18:59, 11 February 2012 (UTC)
 * (ec)I also thought that this sentence was rather strange, but I did think the writer's intention was to state that paid editing per se has not been prohibited. It's a strange view IMHO because the community has consistently limited the type of things that paid editors do, e.g. spam, POV and COI editing.  The only reasonable argument that I've heard against limiting paid editing, is that all the types of obnoxious behavior that we associate with it are already limited or prohibited.  At the same time, I've never heard anybody who was not in PR say that we should actually encourage paid editing.  While I might have the reputation here of being a hard ass against paid editing - I actually would like rules that distinguish what types of PE we'll accept and how other paid editors might be able to submit their work here.  But the PR folks are not that subtle in their view - they just seem to want "(almost) all paid editing is acceptable."  That's a view I simply don't accept, and I don't think the community does either. Smallbones (talk) 19:11, 11 February 2012 (UTC)