Wikipedia Is Nearing "Completion" 248
Hugh Pickens writes "According to Rebecca J. Rosen, it may seem impossible for an encyclopedia of everything to ever near completion, but at least for the major articles on topics like big wars, important historical figures, and central scientific concepts, the English-language Wikipedia is pretty well filled out. 'After an encyclopedia reaches 100,000 articles, the pool of good material shrinks. By the time one million articles are written, it must tax ingenuity to think of something new. Wikipedia,' writes historian and Wikipedia editor Richard Jensen, 'passed the four-million-article mark in summer 2012.' With the exciting work over, editors are losing interest. In the spring of 2012, 3,300 editors contributed more than 100 edits per month each — that's a 31 percent drop from spring of 2007, when that number was 4,800. For example, let's take the Wikipedia article for the War of 1812 which runs 14,000 words cobbled together by 3,000 editors. Today, the War of 1812 page has many more readers than it did in 2008 — 623,000 compared with 434,000 — but the number who make a change has dropped precipitously, from 256 to just 28. Of those original 256, just one remains active. The reason, Jensen believes, is that the article already has had so many edits, there is just not that much to do. Jensen says Wikipedia should now devote more resources toward getting editors access to higher-quality scholarship (in private databases like JSTOR), admission to military-history conferences, and maybe even training in the field of historiography, so that they could bring the articles up to a more polished, professional standard. 'Wikipedia is now a mature reference work with a stable organizational structure and a well-established reputation. The problem is that it is not mature in a scholarly sense (PDF).'"
Coulnd't add to it if you wanted to (Score:5, Insightful)
Loss of interesting articles to write (Score:5, Insightful)
Or frustration at the deletionists nuking anything added about (not-so) niche topics?
War of 1812 is an odd example (Score:5, Insightful)
The War of 1812 is an odd example to pick -- the summary makes it sound like it's a representative military history item for which there is lots of good scholarship, so that the readership and edit traffic numbers might generalize across other history articles.
But in fact, the War of 1812 has been getting more press lately, because it's currently the 200th anniversary. There's even a post-blog, 1812now, specifically about it, and a variety of interest-generating retrospectives in mainstream media.
Their broader point may not hold up for other, less topical pages.
Re:Violations of Wikipedia:Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all Wikipedia editors are as obtuse as you claim. Let me reiterate the comment I made on the submission [slashdot.org]: If particular editors are violating Wikipedia's policy against ownership-like behavior [wikipedia.org] by not allowing a consensus to form after discussion of a reverted edit on an article's talk page [wikipedia.org], consider using the various dispute resolution means in the Wikipedia community.
Exactly what a Wikipedia editor would post.
But seriously, when you try to argue with a senior editor know what everyone tells you? Read the 20 awesome Wikipedia entries that validate their statements, however unjustifiable they are in real arguement.
Re:Violations of Wikipedia:Ownership (Score:2, Insightful)
And one of Wikipedia's sock puppets/cheerleaders chimes in as expected with his "it's all sweetness and light if you follow the bureaucracy and play Wikipedia the Role Playing Game" posts...
You just don't get it do you? It's exactly that all that bullcrap, favoring those who play Wikipedia The Role Playing Game over those who want to do the work, that has driven the latter away. The lunatics are now running the asylum.
What you say reminds me of American politics and our legal system.
And it is probably caused by exactly the same thing - an attempt to make a system both reasonably easy for reasonable people to use while at the same time guarding against abuses while at the same time trying to give people equal treatment.
It's a hard thing to do.
Nonsense, this is deletionist propoganda (Score:5, Insightful)
There are still plenty of Japanese cartoons, political ideologies and conspiracy theories that need pages and links to those pages in every other page that has the slightest real or imagined association.
Re:Oh Yeah, I Remember This Episode (Score:5, Insightful)
Articles in regular Wikipedia on more advanced topics—especially in mathematics—could do with some work in that direction, too.
Certainly the articles don't need to be dumbed down overall, but it would be nice if at least the introductory paragraph were comprehensible to someone who hasn't spent years studying the topic, or hours following an ever-growing tree of other articles the summary links to (and others that those summaries link to, and so on) just to try to understand a majority of the nouns and verbs therein. It's often difficult to even guess at what kind of thing the article concerns without opening at least a half-dozen other tabs.
Maybe some of the articles can't be explained, even at a high level, in simpler language, but the sheer quantity of summaries that drive me to a link-following frenzy in an effort to grasp their basic meaning lead me to believe that a lot of the editors and authors in some areas of Wikipedia aren't good at explaining their field to laymen, don't care about doing so, or don't want anyone to do so.
New Articles (Score:5, Insightful)
After an encyclopedia reaches 100,000 articles, the pool of good material shrinks. By the time one million articles are written, it must tax ingenuity to think of something new.
It isn't that hard. There are plenty of local landmarks around. And there are always new things being built, and new major historical events occurring. And then there is foreign stuff. People write about what they know. Most Anglophones write about things that exist or occur in the English speaking world. There are plenty of famous people, places and historical events in foreign countries that either don't have articles or have very weak articles.
Re:Oh Yeah, I Remember This Episode (Score:5, Insightful)
Articles in regular Wikipedia on more advanced topics—especially in mathematics—could do with some work in that direction, too.
Certainly the articles don't need to be dumbed down overall, but it would be nice if at least the introductory paragraph were comprehensible to someone who hasn't spent years studying the topic, or hours following an ever-growing tree of other articles the summary links to (and others that those summaries link to, and so on) just to try to understand a majority of the nouns and verbs therein. It's often difficult to even guess at what kind of thing the article concerns without opening at least a half-dozen other tabs.
I agree. The first page of any math article should be easily accessible to someone with a BS in a STEM field
Re:Coulnd't add to it if you wanted to (Score:5, Insightful)
Not only editors, but the various scripts that automatically undo any and all changes to articles without anyone even looking at the changes.
It's become such a chore and so many hoops to jump through to add or correct wikipedia that I'm not surprised that people won't bother anymore.
Love/hate Wikipedia... (Score:4, Insightful)
obligatory humorous link to an article on [theonion.com].
Meanwhile, Wikipedia has some serious credibility problems, as a federal judge in California recently observed:
“It is unfortunate that the parties were unable to provide more authoritative evidence. One court recently noted the danger of relying
on Wikipedia:
“See also Badasa v. Mukasey, 540 F.3d 909, 910 (8th Cir.2008) (noting that Wikipedia is not a sufficiently reliable source on
which to rest judicial findings for the reasons stated in Campbell); Kole v. Astrue, No. CV 08–0411–LMB, 2010 WL 1338092,
*7 n. 3 (D.Idaho Mar. 31, 2010) (“At this point, it must be noted that, in support of his brief, Respondent cites to Wikipedia.
While it may support his contention of what the mathematical symbols of ‘’ refer to, Respondent is admonished from
using Wikipedia as an authority in this District again. Wikipedia is not a reliable source at this level of discourse. As an attorney
representing the United States, Mr. Rodriguez should know that citations to such unreliable sources only serve to undermine his
reliability as counsel”); R. Jason Richards, Courting Wikipedia, 44 TRIAL 62, 62 (2008) (“Since when did a Web site that any
Internet surfer can edit become an authoritative source by which law students could write passing papers, experts could provide
credible testimony, lawyers could craft legal arguments, and judges could issue precedents?”); James Glerick, Wikipedians Leave
Cyberspace, Meet in Egypt, WALL ST. J., Aug. 8, 2008, at W1 (“Anyone can edit [a Wikipedia] article, anonymously, hit and
run. From the very beginning that has been Wikipedia's greatest strength and its greatest weakness”).” Crispin v. Christian Audigier, Inc., 717 F.Supp.2d 965, 976 (C.D. Cal., 2010).
Definitely not 'scholarly mature.'
Re:Notability (Score:5, Insightful)
What articles about "(not-so) niche topics" were deleted despite citing three different scholarly or mainstream media sources independent of one another and of the subject?
So, if some media slut says some inane inflammatory bullshit and gets all over the news, that can be cited and documented in Wikipedia... However, if one of us lowly netizens finally reverse engineers an undocumented file format, of use to many folks in the 3D graphics fields, it doesn't get in Wikipedia because there's not three independent "scholarly or mainstream" sources? Even if it's being used like mad in tons of applications, and no one can really find the data elsewhere even though they're searching for it and just don't know what exactly to call it?
Look, Wikipedia blatantly ripped off the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy website, (H2G2) which allowed anyone to add anything regardless of notoriety. It was great, and extremely helpful. There was something on everything. Too bad BBC shut id down. If you didn't want to know about the proper way to drink water upside down, then you didn't read the damn article. Storage is Cheap, esp. for text. Maybe if Wikipedia was more inclusive you'd have MORE EDITORS? Fuck you and your popularity contests.
Re:Terrible editing culture (Score:4, Insightful)
i've also encountered problems, especially with technical articles where the "common wisdom" is terribly misinformed. i won't mention which articles because i was so alarmed and intimidated by the unwelcoming way in which those people who were better informed of wikipedia's "policies" used those policies to bully their way towards reverting everything back towards the ignorant and technically mis-informed perspectives left me feeling very much like i never want to edit wikipedia ever again.
the problem with these particular articles is that they are highly scientifically technical, yet quite obscure at the same time. one of them people wanted to believe that the technology would fail: it is therefore full of a scientific "review" which, wrongly, concludes that the technology could not possibly work. the other, people want to believe that the technology would *succeed*. and, because there *are* no successful examples of that technology, there are no successful products out there which can be used to demonstrate that the wikipedia article is plain wrong and misleading people!
in both cases, the lack of citeable material resulted in an edit war verging on vandalism, and in the end i went "fuck it, i don't need the hassle" and walked away. in neither case were the reviewers welcoming: in one case they actually believed that *i* was the vandal, in direct contravention of wikipedia's "welcoming" policy which is supposed to assume that all contributors are acting with integrity. in fact what had happened was that i had not logged in, so was editing by IP address purely by mistake, and, because of what followed and the level of intimidation and abuse directed at me i am extremely glad that i *did* make that mistake.
wikipedia has a lot to answer for.
Re:Violations of Wikipedia:Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
1. Nerd kid build sand castle on beach.
2. Jock bully kicks over and destroys sand castle.
3. Nerd kid goes to complain to authorities.
4. Nerd kid learns jock bully is really popular with beachgoers because he is the star quarterback of local football team.
5. Jock bully gets a free pass because of this. No punishment, sand castle remains destroyed.
6. Nerd kid is no longer trusted among beachgoers due to bringing "baseless" accusations against popular kid. Further complaints are ignored.
7. Nerd kid stops building sand castles and stops trusting beachgoers.
8. Beachgoers wonder why nobody builds sand castles any more.
It's far, far easier to destroy than to create or rebuild. When you have a culture that supports unchecked destruction by the popular kids, you drive out the culture that wants to create or rebuild. Having a complaint system doesn't help; the culture is still based around destruction, not creation. Moreso when said complaint system only serves to scare the new kids away from complaining by setting up a bureaucracy that, even when followed to completion, only serves to remind the new kids that the popular kids are more popular than they are, so their decisions stand.
Re:Violations of Wikipedia:Ownership (Score:5, Insightful)
Not all Wikipedia editors are as obtuse as you claim. Let me reiterate the comment I made on the submission [slashdot.org]: If particular editors are violating Wikipedia's policy against ownership-like behavior [wikipedia.org] by not allowing a consensus to form after discussion of a reverted edit on an article's talk page [wikipedia.org], consider using the various dispute resolution means in the Wikipedia community.
The question is, after being rejected like that do I care sufficiently to follow up through a complaints procedure? Or do I just walk away and not bother posting to Wikipedia again.
My guess is that a lot of the people do care enough are also the people who are strongly opinionated about the page they're trying to edit, and probably deserved the rejection.
The majority that don't bother to follow up are more likely to have been the ones that might have been useful contributors. ....but I guess we'll never know for sure.
Re:Terrible editing culture (Score:4, Insightful)
Of course print encyclopedias are quite irrelevant, but in an effort keep them relevant the embedded interests tried to create this idealized encyclopedia in which facts were pristine and perfect as they could be. Any error was a temporary misunderstanding of other facts that would soon be corrected by the magical editors who were superior to anyone else in the world. This of course never existed, and if Wikipedia is going to reach it's full potential it has to be very clear about this.
The value of wikipedia is that if reflects a culture that can change more quickly that the print cycle of a encyclopedia, and a world that can be interested in more things that can fit in 30 volumes. Note that changes in the way we related to knowledge occurred prior to the widespread use fo the Internet and Wikipedia. My Brittanica was from the 60's. In the 70's it because a much more pop encyclopedia with much less of the scholarly focus we say from 1900-1970. This included shorter articles.So Wikipedia responded to a market forces that were well in effect by the turn of the century.
So if we say that wikipedia is something new we see that it will never be 'complete' as there will always be some piece of history, some trivia, some event that can be added as soon as someone want to take charge. Even now, there are stub articles that can filled in only someone had the context and knowledge. In that Wikipedia is still run by the people, and therefore it is something old, there is always going to be the element of the pages being a product of the current editors with their biases, which means that it won't be a pristine representations of facts. however, as certain people are going to have interested in certain pages, the biases will be varied. For instance Google will make sure that it's pages continue to look like marketing copy, but that does not mean that other pages cannot have an alternate point of view.
Re:Oh Yeah, I Remember This Episode (Score:5, Insightful)
This. The math articles are actually very good, but you have to make it past the hurdle of being able to comprehend WTF the article is about before you can appreciate the power of all the crosslinks. Many of them drop almost immediately into notations, which even if notations don't scare you off, generally aren't very helpful to the objective of description. Also they follow the general mathematical convention of "here's a big bunch of symbols, now here is what each symbol means" instead of what humans naturally need: here is thing thing, we'll use symbol to represent it, and here are these other things with these symbols, and what's going tpo happen is we are going to divide this generic concept by this other generic concept and add this other thing and now here's the big mess of symbols that describes exaclty how we go about that and here are a few things you might want to notice in that big mess of symbols because they are important/interesting."
It always amazes me after studying a mathematical topic how easy it is to picture the very simple structure of meaning after you already understand it, but how very hard it was to upload that simple structure from the printed page to the wetware. I often hold out hope that a true talent for visual art combined with modern multimedia might make that whole process much smoother. I keep meaning to suggest teaming students from our art department with math students to try to come up with art/video that explains math.
What I would not like to see is what we see on things like the Science channel where documentaries about scientific subjects are really just human interest stories about the scientists involved. That material should be on its own page, except for the tie-ins.
Re:Notability (Score:3, Insightful)
Which, of course, defeats the whole purpose of Wikipedia's open-content open-editing model, since now they're tucked away where casual readers won't ever find them.
Re:New Articles (Score:5, Insightful)
Exactly. This is why the 'notability' thing pisses me off: why not let there be an article for every tiny, minor thing? Where is the harm?
If I care enough about a the history of a the street I grew up on to write an article about it, and do a decent job of it (eg back it up with sources and do a neutral job of it), Wikipedia should be glad to have the info. And once you let in all the small things, and the minor historical figures, all the little battles and sub-sub-sub fields of philosophy, you get many more than 4 million articles.
Encyclopedia Dramatica (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously, do you expect something as vast and ambitious as Wikipedia to exist without a somewhat intimidating rulebook? I'm not saying Wikipedians shouldn't be more welcoming or helpful, or that they're not, perhaps the problem is related to the way the site is structured. It's not easy for newcomers to find their way around the place, or around the people.
Re:Terrible editing culture (Score:5, Insightful)
As one of the first Wikipedia editors, I have to agree. The current state of Wikipedia is unusable. 5 million articles is a pathetically small number: every town, every park, every building, every movie, every TV show, every book, every law, every government official of every country throughout history: all of these should be articles, and would be if it were easier to make them.
--Wikipedia user #43
mandatory xkcd (Score:3, Insightful)
read the mouseover text [xkcd.com]
Re:Oh Yeah, I Remember This Episode (Score:3, Insightful)
Wikipedia is a general purpose encyclopedia, explicitly in the model of other such encyclopedias like Britannica that are written to be accessible to laymen. It is not a technical reference manual.
Re:Violations of Wikipedia:Ownership (Score:4, Insightful)
But seriously, when you try to argue with a senior editor know what everyone tells you? Read the 20 awesome Wikipedia entries that validate their statements, however unjustifiable they are in real arguement.
Yep. I tried adding some facts to an article about a famous/popular author, namely that he was a eugenicist who advocated the elimination and sterilization of the lesser humans. This was challenged, with the sources given as not reliable enough. I offered to hop over to the university library and photograph the intro to one of his works (original printing) where he went on about this. I was told that would not be acceptable evidence.
Did I start up a dispute resolution process? No, this guy was a fan of the author - even if I had emerged victorious, he would have just later deleted it when nobody was looking. It wasn't worth winning this one as I didn't have a dog in the fight.
Completion? Really? (Score:4, Insightful)
There's no way that Wikipedia is anything near to "complete"; there's a huge amount of work left to do to fill in the blanks, correct errors, add detail to existing articles, etc. The large number of stubs I run into when I read almost anything is testimony to that.
But this isn't the sexy work of adding a whole new article, so many people lose interest at this point -- as evidenced by the drop in the rate of recruitment of new editors (see: I did RTFA) and the numbers of edits per article. It's very much like the process of debugging a piece of software to make it functional and useful; many developers just aren't all that into the whole process, the grind that it takes to turn a first-pass into a usable product.
I think what they're trying to tell us is that Wikipedia is nearing maturity
Re:Revert bots (Score:5, Insightful)
You mean bots like ClueBot NG and XLinkBot? If you've been around for four days and make ten edits, a lot of those anti-vandal bots will stop reverting you.
So casual editors are explicitly not welcome. My kid can't see a mistake, edit it, and expect the correction to stick until he's satisfied our robotic overlords? Fuck that. No wonder edits are drying up.
Re:Disagree (Score:4, Insightful)
I personally know several professors who will not accept citing Wikipedia.
You shouldn't cite Wikipedia for the exact same reason that you shouldn't cite Encyclopedia Britannica. Both are tertiary references, and it's preferred to cite the primary or secondary source. If you haven't figured this out by the time you reach college, you need to go back to high school.
There's also a huge difference between "citing Wikipedia" in term papers and "using Wikipedia" in your research. I fully support Professors that ban citing Wikipedia. But I completely support students that want to use Wikipedia as a good starting point to their research on a given topic.