User:Bill Thayer
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Many of the problems I address below are now solved — at Citizendium. Those of us who want to spend our time usefully will probably be better off contributing to Citizendium.
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[edit] External links
- my website, including
- my user page at Italian Wiki
- my page at Armeniapedia
- my e-mail address (I don't pick up Wikipedia-based e‑mail.)
[edit] My evolving view of Wikipedia
[edit] Quality of discourse
I tend just to lope away from anything unpleasant, and surely I'm not the only person similarly inclined. It would be better for Wikipedia if there weren't quite so many people with bees in our bonnets — but that's the human condition, self included, so we'd settle for manners and less of a predisposition to assume that people are out to cut our throats, or (and here I suspect projection) that when I disagree with you, I must have some kind of agenda. Speaking for myself — mind you, again, I'm hardly unique — I'm often just concerned with plain facts. To see things said that are demonstrably false in their facts, then stuck to like glue out of malignant pigheadedness, doesn't make coöperatively minded people want to work on a project.
[edit] Basic premise
Anyway, the idea behind Wikipedia was to write an encyclopedia. Even the most optimistic assessments of the project's chances of success, a few years ago, did not match what has actually happened: there are, in English, the lead language, something like a million articles. Many of them are substantially complete, and some, especially in the sciences (which are less subject to vandalism and the endless reverts by people with varying political opinions that passes for "NPOV"), are very good. In sum, the work of building the encyclopedia is nearing completion: after all, isn't that what you'd expect, with hundreds of people working several years at something? Now, other than updates and the writing of articles to cover new realities (as for example the historical events of next year), most edits are minor and due to vandalism or quibbling of various kinds. This was confirmed, if not quite statistically yet, on Mar 22, 2006: when for the first time, every edit made to any of the 260+ articles on my watchlist, was vandalism or a stupid quibble, or reverting it. I expect days of this type to increase in frequency; since mid-March, most days have missed it by one or maybe two edits of substance, and even then, that one edit was not that substantial.
[edit] How article editing works
Most articles on topics of average importance, except those of course dealing with ongoing developments, are started by one person who sees the need, then rapidly expanded by the addition of facts, then finally tweaked and retweaked, endlessly, by various people: in sum an article follows a typical S-curve. Overlaid on this is the periodic incursion of crackpots with theories and agendas, and vandals who vent on Wikipedia 'coz it's easy to do, anonymous, and leads to no consequences. Each article has a crew of people who watch it; the more important the topic, the more the watchers. These watchers revert all these additions back to the mean; and by its nature, this mean is a reflection of the spirit of our time more than anything else. The result is that an article will oscillate around a fairly comprehensive set of facts expressed in a rather dull way. Since there is no mechanism to distinguish between crackpots and true original thinking, Wikipedia, by positing that all original thought ("original research") is unsafe, quite ensures the mediocrity of the articles. The more controversial articles are usually controlled by a tight little group espousing some particular view: people with a truly differing view are ground into the dirt, often very rudely, as "POV". True NPOV is exceedingly difficult to manage while retaining article focus, so this may be the most naturally efficient way of running an article; but it doesn't make it necessarily accurate, or even intelligent.
[edit] Article quality
- Wikipedia articles are therefore useful in alerting the reader to the general parameters of the topic, and sometimes in steering the reader to better resources, but they should not be relied on as a serious source of information.
- The supposed NPOV business at best merely flattens out the articles (good writing is always by someone; one of the things that made the 1911 Britannica great was its quirkiness and the individual quality of its articles); and at worst, which is oftener than one wants or expects, presents the Zeitgeist, as filtered thru the self-selecting group that Wikipedia appeals to: yet truth, which is what Wikipedia ought to be aiming at, is not something to be decided by a majority.
[edit] Vandalism, and working toward a solution
- Finally, the sheer amount of wasted work that burdens good editors — there are many — in reverting the endless streams of crap added by vandals, the overwhelming bulk of whom are anonymous and probably children, is not something I want to take on. I now rarely fix vandalism. If you believe in it, you do it; better yet, by a single group decision, much of the vandalism problem could be solved instantly. Only registered editors should be allowed to edit, and registration should involve traceability. It is, by the way, a myth that vandalism is reverted within a few minutes. As the Seigenthaler controversy showed quite clearly, quite a lot of garbage stays on for months. For over 5 months I watched the article Marche: despite having been edited 20 times in that period, it continued during all that time to include a piece of malicious vandalism; and in fact, in early Apr 06 the "error" — the vandalism — was picked up by an honest but unwitting editor and added to a related article; Cantalamessa finally corrected it. I also regularly see multiple uncorrected vandal edits, often by repeat vandals: the system is in fact swamped by such repeat vandals and even a casual glance thru the "contributions" of repeat vandals shows many malicious edits going uncorrected and working their way into the old history of articles, and, apparently, migrating into related entries as well.
- My best shot at solving the vandalism problem is this: that good editors go on strike, refusing to revert vandalism. If enough of us do it, the articles will gradually liquefy into sludge, the Powers That Be won't like it, and the rules will be changed: Only registered editors should be allowed to edit, and registration should involve traceability.
- Those of us inclined to revert blatant vandalism, by the way, even from first-time "editors", I'm in favor of biting the newcomer, and fairly hard, too. There is no reason on earth that a child blanking out an article and replacing it by "fuck you" or "sffgjhkdfsghn" should be thanked (as in the Test-n template) for their "edit". These people know what they're doing, and so do we. Good teachers know that a good deal of unpleasantness can be headed off at the pass by a sharp dose of discipline at the beginning; later on, one can loosen up.
[edit] Result
- The result is, well, something that reads like it was written by a committee: which it was, of course, and a committee neither informed nor disciplined, at that; and finally, rather scared of original thought (which is understandable, and probably even reasonable from a statistical standpoint). Put that all together, and the fact that you never quite know what you're going to find when you travel to a Wickedpedia page — and I neither link to Wikipedia from my own website nor really recommend anyone else do it, either. These reasons also make me very loath to correct typos, copyedit, or even correct blatant mistakes; why give this the time? The idea was good, in an ideal world. In practice, however, Wikipedia will only succeed if it becomes accountable and refereed. To insure that success, It's now time to close editing on most of the more important larger articles, and to turn them over to expert or refereed editors for a final shaping.
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