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Posted by: taiwopanfob

How many times does this have to be said?

1. Every BLP at Wikipedia that does not contain at least one reference to a dead-trees book about the subject must be erased Right Now. The only exceptions may in fact be chief executives of a State, Nobel prize winners, or people of similar stature.

2. Mainstream media is inherently unreliable, as the current episode (and uncountably previous ones) demonstrate. They work to completely different goals and under dissimilar constraints. Waiting does not fix the problem. It really is an informational sewer, and it takes a great deal of time, effort and frankly skill to isolate the useful information. (Which gets back to point (1).)

Posted by: gomi

And continuing to debate Ottava on that topic, rather than addressing those "very legitimate concerns", is somewhat disingenuous. To repeat myself:

It seems to me that any admin who touched that article should be summarily de-adminned. It would show some leadership and responsibility, which is why it won't happen.

Posted by: It's the blimp, Frank

But the more clever POV pushers like Beback have developed a technique of assembling a huge catalogue of news stories going back decades, and then cherry picking the negative articles.

Posted by: Herschelkrustofsky

Nicely put (except that media is plural.)

Posted by: WikiWatch

It's a shame this isnt applied evenly across wikipedia. That would kill off the thousands of trivial pop culture articles and non-notable BLPs that have infested wikipedia in the last 10 years.

Posted by: lilburne

Hey ho. The irony in this is pretty.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murder_of_Joanna_Yeates#Arrest_and_release

Posted by: Gruntled

On the first part, isn't Playboy published by a notable publisher? Some of their other publications are books, even hardback books. I couldn't decipher the second part; would you allow non-books only if they are published by a non-academic publisher?

Posted by: Gruntled

Do you mean a full-length biography? That's awfully restrictive. Do you mean an entry in a respectable reference work? Cue huge debate about what reference works to include. And major reference works are increasingly only available online.

> What happened to automatic post-merging?

Posted by: Peter Damian

Ottava speak sense.

Posted by: Ottava

Hence why I wouldn't allow "news" sources.

Journalists aren't academics. They don't go through Peer Review. They have rush deadlines and are there to make money. Not reliable.






Not a reliable academic press nor anything academic at all. That book has a majorly skewed POV and I am troubled that you would even attempt to use it as a source, ignoring that she is not the primary subject of the book or even given anything major in the book.

It is sad that Wikipedia Review's great hope is someone who isn't able to recognize a bad source instantly. The corruption has gone so deep that even an amputation wont solve it, it seems.



Gruntled



No, it is self published.



Dogbiscuit



I see Silver seren's thinking that his source would be reliable as a case in point.



Working with some Tea Party people last election, I would say that 99% of them aren't Republican. A La Rouchean took over of the groups in Maryland and used it to spout off their nonsense.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

I guess I have to repeat myself again?



Emphasis added.



You are aware this is not a biography of Giffords?

I have also proposed that only editors that have indemnified the WMF in writing regarding libel or any other liability should be allowed to edit BLP's. Do I need to add further conditions that basic reading comprehension of English also be a requirement? One would think that having your entire net-worth on the line with each edit would encourage a certain amount of responsibility and care, but perhaps some people need further clues.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

The idea is not unique to me, but yes, this is precisely what I mean. It solves two related problems:

a) Notability. Real biographers and their publishers do not waste their time on nobodies.

b) Original Research/Synthesis. Every biography at Wikipedia that is not traced back to a dead-tree at some point is, in effect, a synthesis.

Not sure what you mean by "restrictive", as there is hardly a lack of candidates. Of course, to most Wikipediots, this is a terrible thing. Where are they going to grind those axes?

Posted by: Ottava

A full length biography isn't necessary, as most modern biographies aren't academic. A chapter in an academic work, however, would show notability.

Samuel Johnson's wife is notable - she is heavily discussed in hundreds of academic books. I don't know of a full length book on just her, however, as academic works need a "point" and a "point" is not to just tell someone's life story.

An academic journal article could also be a substitute for a chapter. Now, you would need multiple works to justify "notability".


Just as a note, I mean the above should apply to -all- articles, BLP or not.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

I left in some exception case to cover stuff like this, as it is possible there are (for example) heads of State that have no full biography either. These exceptions have to be overwhelming, beyond-any-doubt situations. The balance for this exception is "opt out": the subject of any BLP allowed under the exception can have their BLP pulled on request.

On top of all of this is liability. BLP editors should be known to the WMF, and all BLP's should be covered by an editor like that.

Posted by: KD Tries Again

It's interesting that actual printed books from reputable publishers are regarded - quite rightly - as the benchmark in this context.

But I think this is correct:

It isn't the rules that are the problem as much as the fact that those applying them are - as a matter of policy - unqualified (or not necessarily qualified) to do so. What the project needs is editors, as opposed to "editors."

Posted by: Ottava

I think you mean writers. Editors merely organize or check grammar (but most of the time fail at doing that and pass off rubbish while still getting paid).

Researchers would also be important - someone that is able to spend time looking through the credible material on a subject and pull out the important or representative pieces.

Posted by: Kwork

If an editor violates WP:3RR he/she will get blocked within minutes. If an editor violates WP:V for years, there will never be even a warning. Unless administrators start giving blocks for WP:V violations, nothing will ever improve. I have never seen a user blocked for putting in content that says the inverse of the source cited.

Posted by: Silver seren

Okay, question then. You guys are saying that at least a chapter, if not a book, written by an academic about a person is what is necessary to make them notable? Well, it's quite clear that most Presidents of the US are notable then (the most recent, perhaps not, the academics have been slacking off lately). However, this implies that leaders of nations are notable, correct?

But, most leaders of foreign countries, other than main ones like England and a lot of Europe, are not written about by academics in books. Especially the smaller nations.

Furthermore, your definition of academic is clearly US-centric, when the level of an academic can be considered differently in other nations.

The problem with the way you are defining notability is that it is quite clear that it would be perpetuating and worsening the systemic bias that Wikipedia is already trying to remove, since most academics write about the Western world and not as much about the rest. This is trying to create a knowledge base of information about the entire world, not just the western part of it. That's why the rules of notability have to be considered differently when taken into the context of other nations, because the coverage is going to be different or less from the way it is done in the West.

Posted by: lilburne

Presumably they are notable in their own land, and the local wikis can carry articles on them., sourced by local academics. Some local politico in Thailand is not notable in the UK for example and few in the UK would be able to ascertain whether something written about him is true, or written by an adversary, or whatever.

Posted by: Ottava

Germany doesn't have academic works?

Russia doesn't?

China doesn't?

The only US-centric person is you. It is an underlying racism that isn't appropriate. And smaller nations aren't notable. Notability is based on how many people are connected to you to establish importance. Some minor senator of a country with 1,000 people is probably not important.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Either you're referring to the Vatican or is this is another of your silly hypotheticals.

Posted by: Silver seren

I was clearly talking about leaders of countries (or vice-presidents, I suppose, the important people in the government). And I specifically ruled out Europe, so Germany is clearly out (as would be Russia, in my opinion). And China definitely covers their high ranking people, yes. Now, about all of the other countries? Africa, for example, or the rest of Asia, or Oceania, for that matter. They definitely have more than just 1000 people, though you were clearly being facetious, I would hope.

Posted by: melloden

No one gives a fuck about Africa except Angelina Jolie.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

His definition of academic presumably includes himself and his peers, which means notability will have to wait until (a) somebody is desperately searching for a masters or PhD thesis subject that will make them stand out, or (b) somebody desperately searching for a subject to publish about while on tenure track, or © somebody publishing in obscure journals in order to have something to put on their cv that will help them land a cushy job (in politics (a la Ottava), business, or whatev).

In Ottava's world, respecting the opinions of people without degrees has been a big mistake, and http://en.wikiversity.org/w/index.php?title=Wikiversity:Colloquium&diff=prev&oldid=666145.

BLPs of political figures is actually one of the good things WP has going for it, the problem with them is that they tend to either attract hordes of partisans from one or both sides, or else be owned by one side or another. Actual current events should probably just be mentioned ("something has changed in this person's life, but the information is currently unreliable"), but putting it in the hands of people like Ottava to write the source material is probably a bad idea.

Posted by: taiwopanfob

Given most citeable(sp?) information is due to Western sources, it is unlikely Wikipedia is going to escape this "bias". Indeed, should Wikipedia say one of their purposes is to eliminate this "bias", then one would have a neutrality problem, no? One of the "pillars" mandates you are supposed to follow sources, not some ideological agenda.

The specific issue with BLP's is to both fix the fact that Wikipedia is admitting information from extremely questionable sources, as well as to minimize the damage done by the asswipes at Wikipedia using WMF internet properties to "shit on the heads of People They Don't Like" (per Eric Barbour).

Posted by: Ottava

It is snide commentary like the above from Wikipedia admin that is the reason why tens of thousands of articles are pure shit.

1. I don't know if SBJ doesn't know that a trollop (Moulton's word) is another word for whore or if he thinks that all women are whores. Either way, that is his personal problem.

2. I have hundreds of articles and they aren't sourced to my friends. Look at some examples - Walter Jackson Bate, Pulitzer prize winning biographer. Or Harold Bloom, the world's pre-eminent literary critic.

3. If he thinks even the neutral BLPs of politicians are good, then there is something really wrong with him.

4. I find it odd how he thinks that I am some how bad at academia when my articles are written without the flaws that destroy other Wikipedia articles - neutral, reflects the top academic minds, highly researched, and use real sources. Of course, SB Johnny knows nothing about writing articles or academia.


Mods, can you deal with that troll?

Posted by: taiwopanfob

+N for this, N a fairly large number. It would make a great deal of sense to carve up these projects into a hierarchy of geographic regions, and work out some way of automatically merging the sub-wiki's into super-wiki's.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

There will be at least minimal biographical information on the heads of state of just about every nation in the CIA Fact Book, which, while not entirely without bias, is at least a fairly credible source. A dedicated researcher can probably find, with some effort, a journal article or other similar work that at least briefly discusses any given head of state, if for no other reason to provide context for some other topic related to that country. If nothing else, the official biography issued by the country in question can be cited to, with reservations, in a reasonable article.

The problem isn't in coming up with reasonable guidelines and rules; the problem is in getting Wikipedians to follow them. These are not the rules they want. For some of them, they're simply too much work for the bother; for others, they actively prevent them from doing what they want to do (which is, of course, to use Wikipedia as a tool for ideological advocacy). The rest just don't care enough to understand why it matters, but since their friends are objecting to them then they must be a bad idea.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

Do you mean what he says on Wikiversity and on Wikipedia Review may affect the quality of articles on Wikipedia, or have you given up trying to make sense?

The use–mention distinction appears to be lost on you. In any case Moulton's wisecrack was clearly a pun on the words "troll" and "operating" hence "troll-ops" cf. "black-ops" etc., but he meant to say "early 19th-century" not "18th" I'm sure.

These names appear not to be among the titles of the articles you've written. I suppose you meant to say you have cited these individuals as sources while writing other articles, in which case you should make the subject–article distinction clearer.

As opposed to favoring those biased toward your viewpoints, or are you making the absolute claim that none of them are "good" (whatever that means in this context)?

To be fair, most of us don't have your academic background, yet somehow are able to communicate more literately. I doubt you ever think about how ridiculous you look, gloating about your prowess as a writer whilst committing multiple unforced grammatical errors, but frankly I find it hilarious.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

I was actually going to say something about "sex worker" and "prostitute" being the preferred terms, but your retort was better.

I was using "friends" in a non-literal sense that was referring to academics who are desperate to publish. I wasn't meaning to imply that Ottava had friends.

Unfortunately I do know quite a bit about academia, but fortunately gave up the habit before it was too late.

How long did it take you to do all that tricky stuff with the bbcode red pen?

Posted by: gomi

[Modnote: posts above here were split from the thread "http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=32007" as being off-topic. They are pertinent to the question of notability and citation standards for biographies, but not specific to the case of Rep. Giffords.]

Posted by: Ottava

First off, Charlotte, many of your "fixes" are wrong.

1. "It is Snide commentary like the above" is proper. "Snide Commentary" is the object of "it" and is a common phrase.

2. "that is the reason" By removing "that" from the sentence, you change the type of sentence it is. "It is ____ that does ____" is a common formula for writing. That you would treat it as improper shows that you don't know what you are talking about and are disrupting for no legitimate reason.

3. "I don't know if whether SBJ doesn't knows that a "trollop" (Moulton's word) is another word for "whore" or if he simply thinks that all women are whores."

ERNT. Sorry, you lose. Your "correction" took two independent questions and turned them into an either/or. They were not mutually exclusive.

A. I don't know if SBJ doesn't know that a "trollop" (Moulton's word) is another word for "whore"

and

B. I dont know... if he simply thinks all women are whores.

The rest is equally bad. Then besides, grammar, there is this:

4. ". In any case Moulton's wisecrack was clearly a pun on the words "troll" and "operating" hence "troll-ops" cf. "black-ops" etc"

Obviously, you missed that I was making a joke.


When you try to be a smart ass, it isn't good to fail so hard.

Then there is stupidity here:

"These names appear not to be among the titles of the articles you've written."

We were talking about -references- . Why would you suddenly, magically (!!!), transform that into "titles" is beyond any logical understanding.

"yet somehow are able to communicate more literately."

Apparently, you can't.

Hell, you even got this wrong: "destroy" replaced by "plague" makes no sense. We are discussing BLPs being ruined. Destroyed is "ruined". Plagued only means that they might be annoyed. You radically change things that aren't wrong to seem smart, and yet it accomplishes nothing.



Mods, can someone deal with Charlotte's bullshit?

And can a Mod reveal who Charlotte really is? No one would troll that hard to protect abuse unless they had something to lose.

Posted by: gomi

Probably not, but you would need to be more specific.

Absolutely not, and you know it. That is a completely inappropriate request here.

[Modnote: an incendiary comment from a member, regarding Ottava's post above, was removed. General admonition: please calm down, or much of this thread will end up in the Tar Pit.]

Posted by: EricBarbour

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

"Destroy" implies the articles in question have ceased (or might soon cease) to exist as a result of the flaws you've described. For now I'll assume you'd find something more interesting to bitch about if that were so.


Or perhaps, nothing at all. Did you ever consider that? No, you only see what you want to believe. When you creep from the back I got tricks up my sleeve. Don't worry tough; I can troll you till the cows come home. Until you stop reducing every thread into a masturbatory discussion of yourself, it's probably what I'll do. You and the Poet-socks alike.


I'm truly sorry I missed that. Hopefully someone will provide me with the juicy details of this. But for now, goodnight.

Posted by: Somey

Getting back to the subject, kinda sorta:

This appears to be a common misconception. Those of us who are advocating tighter controls on what's allowed in BLP articles, and/or an opt-out policy, are not trying to define notability at all - this is a Wikipedian linguistic construct, an idiomatic term, a canard if you will.

People often forget that Wikipedia-style "notability standards" are designed to keep people out, not prevent people from leaving once they're in. I should really speak only for myself, but I've always maintained that Wikipedia could actually lower notability standards if they wanted to, without a peep from people like myself, as long as they were willing to give article subjects some degree of personal control - particularly in cases where they can make a legitimate case that they're being persecuted (fairly or, especially, unfairly) by Wikipedians.

Generally speaking, though, Wikipedians don't want lower "notability standards," they want to ensure that the people they choose to write about aren't allowed to do anything about it, or against them - in particular, spoil their hour or two of hard work (and don't forget those new-article stats) by asking for the articles about them to be deleted.

What I call the "traditional-publication standard" for exemption from a future opt-out policy is a practical compromise, an effort to be reasonable in the face of intractable irresponsibility, immaturity, and selfishness. It has very little to do with whether or not a person actually is, in fact, "notable" - a subjective concept if ever there was one. It makes sense because nearly all famous people have books (or portions of books) written about them, and books can't simply be deleted if it turns out they're wrong.

Mr. Taiwopanfob (for example) believes that all BLPs about people who don't meet the traditional-publication standard should be deleted immediately, and personally I would support that idea 100 percent. But this is nevertheless an extreme view. The majority of people with BLPs don't seem to mind the fact that potentially damaging falsehoods could be inserted into them at any time, because for most people the risk of this is fairly low. But I don't think it's much of a stretch to say that even they would greatly appreciate being allowed to opt out if something happening on Wikipedia made that the only tolerable course of action.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

And, more importantly, their perception of that risk is such that it is not outweighed by the perceived benefit of being "listed" in Wikipedia. The reason Wikipedia will not adopt either "opt-in" or "opt-out" policies for biographical listings (the real reason, not the fake one about it being silly to require a truly famous person to opt in, or allow him/her to opt out) is that it would strip the "encyclopedia" gloss off of Wikipedia and reveal it for what it would unequivocally be in that case: a vehicle for self-promotion.

I'd love to have a listing for my consulting business in Wikipedia. It would probably generate significant traffic to my business website and almost certainly get me customers. Sure, I'd have to spend some time monitoring the article for damaging material, but even if I spent, say, fifteen minutes a day on that (and I could easily use automation to monitor just that one page and have it send me an email whenever it's edited so I'm sure I could get it under 15 minutes a day), if it brought me one customer a month it's be a net win. Of course, Wikipedia isn't going to allow me to have that listing. But a lot of people in situations similar to mine still try. And Wikipedia doesn't like that.

In addition you have the issue ideologues, who want their hagiographic paeans and/or defamatory screeds to remain untouched regardless of the feelings of anyone else, since they are fighting virtuously for the truth. And you have the rebound bullies (which is a lot of Wikipedia's administrators), who have discovered that it's much more fun to be the bully than the bullied and don't want to give up that power.

The thing to keep in mind there's not one single reason; it's a complex mash of motivations and desires, which converge to create policy organically. When the major motivations conflict is when you see fireworks. There is some conflict on this because there are significant groups with interests on both sides of this issue. And, finally, it must be noted that things like the real interests of the subject, the interests of readers, or the interest of the public generally, will not have much influence on the result.

Posted by: thekohser

With some http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elonka_Dunin, of course.

Posted by: Ottava

That is pure bullshit. Destroyed does not mean that. "Annihilated" does. Is English even your primary language?

At least pick up a damn dictionary before trolling.

Destroyed: "to reduce (an object) to useless fragments, a useless form, or remains"

Annihilated: "to reduce to utter ruin or nonexistence"

One means to make useless, the other means to remove it from existence. This is Elementary school stuff. Wtf is wrong with you that even the most basic of things escapes you yet you go on and on about it anyway?


You lack a real argument. Your snide grammar criticism embarrassed yourself and verified that you don't know what you are talking about. You hide behind a fake name while trolling. You are pathetic.




Somey



That wouldn't fix the bigger problem - notability is a problem because of sourcing standards. Sourcing will always be awful because a poor status quo is necessary to POV war and the such. The problem is lack of integrity as a whole. Every single issue can be traced back to this.

Posted by: Gruntled

The publishers are closely linked to the editors (as is true for some academic journals, of course). Does that in itself make them non-notable? Or do you have your own definition of non-notable?

If you don't like Playboy, how about magazines published by Richard Desmond? Or is he non-notable too?


That's not going to satisfy ottava, is it? The CIA aren't academics, nor are (in all likelihood) official biographers. And the CIA factbook isn't a whole book devoted to the subject.

Posted by: Gruntled

Shouldn't that be "damned dictionary"?

Incidentally, Ottava, can you find me a serious academic work about each member of Obama's cabinet? Or are some of them non-notable?

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Ottava's insane. Satisfying him is not terribly high on my list of concerns.

Posted by: CharlotteWebb

I'm really a Russian spy, haven't you heard?


В Советской России, можете идти ебать себе!!

Posted by: Ottava

I wouldn't consider them automatically notable nor do I care. Why should a group picked because of political nepotism require Wikipedia pages just because of the picker?

If they did something worthy of study, then someone will have studied it.



As for your previous thing, you confuse a notable person who publishes something with a notable publisher. Most academic journals are published by university presses. It doesn't matter who the editor is, the publisher is someone else.

Universities and other notable publishers have a reputation to uphold.

Posted by: A Horse With No Name

But some people have reputations that they are still trying to live down:

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Right, but he seems happy enough to be a walking straw man, which makes him useful for our friends who need a debating partner to sharpen up their spiels.

Posted by: Ottava

Except that any objective person reading the thread would see that my comments and ideas have a lot of support.

Why is it that the people who want to fix Wikipedia agree with me but the ones who art part of the system that led to Wiki being so broken are all opposed? Oh, the answer is obvious.

Posted by: gomi

Oh Brother, what art thou?

Posted by: Kelly Martin

I'm sure they do in Ottavaworld. Please stay in there and spare the rest of us the experience.

Posted by: Ottava

Direct agreement, there are three blatant ones:
1. Peter Damian Sun 9th January 2011, 6:42am "Ottava speak sense."
2. gomi Sat 8th January 2011, 9:27pm "In general, Ottava's point is valid, but should probably be recast. "
3. WikiWatch Sun 9th January 2011, 1:57am "It's a shame this isnt applied evenly across wikipedia. That would kill off the thousands of trivial pop culture articles and non-notable BLPs that have infested wikipedia in the last 10 years."


Then there are many people in the threads that respond to those criticizing my statements in ways that are positive, like taiwopanfob or Herschelkrustofsky's comment in reply to taiwonpanfob.


Then those like Dogbiscuit, KD Tries Again and It's the blimp, Frank do not dismiss my comment but merely think that the rules wont work as people will find ways to ignore them.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

You just so need to live somewhere far from the beltway for a while.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Even a broken clock is right twice a day. The fact that Ottava can, once in a while, accidentally say something that happens to be true means very little indeed.

Restating ideas expressed by others and claiming credit for them, though, now that is the mark of the true academic.

Posted by: Gruntled

But Richard Desmond is only notable because he is a publisher. Maybe by "notable" you in fact mean "such a publisher as I with my superior wisdom deem respectable"; a better word might be "Ottava-imprimatured".

There are plenty of academic journals that are not published by university presses. They are published by learned societies (Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences), professional bodies (the British Medical Journal), commercial publishers (Nature, by Macmillan) or self-perpetuating trusts. Are all these journals beneath contempt? Are the National Academy of Sciences and the British Medical Association notable as publishers?

Yes, but we still haven't demonstrated that Richard Desmond is not notable.

Posted by: Ottava

By "publisher", I was referring to the company that publishes the work, not the individual at the top or individuals in general. An "institution".

And the "learned societies" probably lack the printing presses to be the actual publisher. For example, the British Medical Journal is published by BMJ Group (United Kingdom). Although the companies are related, it is a specialized publisher that deals with the act of publication. If you notice, it also says an "academic publisher" on its Wiki page, but that means little.

And use of universities as publisher was just one example of notable publishers of journals.



Kelly Martin



Since that is the closest that the infamous Kelly Martin will go to making a public apology or admitting she is wrong, I graciously accept.

Posted by: EricBarbour

You do know where Adam Ant got his name, http://www.twyfordbathrooms.com/default.asp?path=1%3B52%3B8648%3B10314?

Posted by: Gruntled

Ah, the old "a word means whatever I want it to mean, and the hell with what the dictionary says". The dictionary says "Publisher - a person or thing that publishes" (my emphasis).

Of course learned societies, like most publishers, probably don't own their own printing presses. They, being academics, will know the difference between a printer and a publisher. Yes, if you want to split hairs, the British Medical Journal is published by BMJ Group, a company entirely owned by the BMA and only notable for publishing the BMJ. If you believe that means that it is not published by the BMA, then by your own logic the BMJ is not published by a publisher notable in its own right, so it is worthless.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Of course it's worthless. It would never publish anything that Ottava might write.

Ottava has an agenda, just like everyone else who is trying to manipulate Wikipedia's concepts of "notability" and "reliable source". Identifying Ottava's agenda is left as an exercise to the reader. Don't strain yourself too hard.

Posted by: Ottava

Don't be a douche. You know very well that when someone asks who published a book, they are asking about a company. And the definition has -or-, which means that I am not wrong. It was my word choice, and if you need clarification, you ask me instead of making up your own imaginary view.

If you want to have an honest discussion, stop acting like a troll.

You should have been tipped off that when Kelly Martin has your back that there is a problem with you.

Oh, and for your information, the BMJ Group publishes far more than just the BMJ.

Posted by: Gruntled

I know no such thing. If you tell someone that a book was published by Richard Desmond or Rupert Murdoch, for example, that is far more informative than giving the name of one of the companies they own, which would mean nothing to the average person.

You were saying that a publisher can only be a company or corporate body, not a person. That is not compatible with the dictionary definition. I, on the other hand, say that a publisher can be a person or a corporate body.

If you want to have an honest discussion, stop acting like a troll. (Acknowledgements to Ottava.)

I know perfectly well that it does. It publishes everything that the BMA (of which it is a part) tells it to, and nothing else. It is not a notable publisher in its own right, just (as we say here) a sockpuppet.

Posted by: Ottava

I said notable publishers. If you want more specifics on what I would propose on how to define that, you could ask. Instead, you started making assumptions to try and be cute.

What is your point? Do you actually want to know what I had in mind? Probably not. It seems like you are more intent on trying to "prove me wrong" at any cost. And to what end? There is no legitimate reason.

Your actions are trolling. If you want to have an actual discussion on the merits of what makes a source legitimate for use in articles, especially BLPs, you will have to dramatically change your tone and approach.

Posted by: KD Tries Again

No, actually I meant editors. Not copy editors.

Posted by: KD Tries Again

Surely:

Posted by: Gruntled

A notable publisher is a person (e.g. Richard Desmond or Rupert Murdoch) or a thing (e.g. The University of Chicago Press) notable for being a publisher. If you are trying to claim otherwise, that's just trolling. It seems like you are more intent on trying to "prove yourself right" at any cost. And to what end? There is no legitimate reason.

Shall we agree then that the only legitimate sources, especially for BLPs, are those with the Ottava imprimatur, such as reference works published by The University of Chicago Press?

Posted by: Gruntled

Look, this is someone who doesn't know a publisher from a printer. How can he tell a copy editor from an editor?

Posted by: Ottava

Before you make such outrageous claims, you will see that I said that editors either organize or copyedit. They aren't the producers of content. That has always been true.

Furthermore, I never said "printer" anyway. A publisher has editors, illustrators, distributors, and many other aspects beyond just a printer. Individual people do not have all of that, and if they did then they weren't truly "individuals".

It is obvious that you are just avoiding the original topic and trolling. Your lame attempts to "prove me wrong" while derailing the topic are just that, lame.

Posted by: Gruntled

When discussing things with ottava, it's always useful to remind him of what he actually said.


So Ottava imagines that to be a publisher you must have printing presses, i.e. be a printer.

Posted by: Collect

Many publishers do not have any printing presses at all. They then either use their preferred printer, or printers, or put the book out to bid. Many books, especially ones with photos, are printed in China or elsewhere overseas. And some publishers did, in fact, start out as individuals, or small partnerships working out of undistinguished offices. As an aside, most publishers do not have house illustrators or distributors either.

Posted by: Ottava

Um, no. It is a reality - publishing houses use their own printers. Even CUA's publishing division has its own printers. If they have to get an outside printer, chances are they aren't that notable.

Unless you want to talk about "online publishing", which is ridiculous. The whole point is about paper books and forcing people to not copy and paste from the internet.



Collect



See above. We are talking about notable publishers that can be relied on as highly trusted sources to determining if someone is notable enough to be put in Wikipedia.

Posted by: lilburne

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxford_University_Press

Poor, poor, Ottava.

Posted by: Peter Damian

Just to spell that one out.

As a friend who has worked for a long time in publishing told me only the other day. Publishers used to contract out to places in the distant shires of England. Now, as you say, it's places like China.

Posted by: Gruntled

Ah, now we're getting somewhere. Notable publishers like Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond have printer subsidiary companies in their empire, so their books are OK. Publishers like John Wiley and many learned societies are not notable and their books can't be trusted.

Also, reference works like the Oxford English Dictionary and Current Authors, which are only being updated online, can't be cited in Wikipedia.

Won't it make Wikipedia better when it has to rely on books published by Rupert Murdoch and Richard Desmond?

Posted by: Ottava

"publishes some 6,000 new titles around the world each year,"

Around the world. They still print books there. I've gotten on demand printings from their print house. It is outrageously expensive, but they do it.

Subsidizing their printing with outsiders is not the same as having only outsiders print it. Note also that the page doesn't elaborate on the statement about contracting and it does show how they had their own in-house printer for an incredibly long time.


You people keep trying to quibble over small details and play with semantics instead of discussing the actually important statements.

It is like me saying the sky is blue and someone saying "not at night!"



Gruntled



They are notable for being involved in dirty politics, not as publishers (not so much Desmond, as he is more of a charity guy than a political publicity whore). News Corps is notable as a publisher. That was my original point on talking about the businesses instead of individuals. Rupert Murdoch probably has no clue about what is being published half the time and if he did he is probably very uninvolved.


I distinguish the two because a work by Rupert Murdoch doesn't deserve to count as an appropriate source to determine notability for Wikipedia, whereas someone academic by News Corps -might-. Murdoch is clearly not involved in an academically serious manner and is too POV'd to be anything deemed reasonable.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Technologies like the the iPad (and whatever it is in 5 years that will make iPads look like eniacs) will probably displace a lot of small-run academic printings in the not very distant future. Good for the trees, but not so good for this line of argument.

Posted by: lilburne

Like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HarperCollins perchance?

Posted by: lilburne

Seehttp://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/62877.stm I mentioned HarperCollins above.

Posted by: Ottava

That seems like an incredibly rare event and they were sued, making them responsible in a way that most internet sites are not. Regardless, the work doesn't seem like it is that academic anyway, nor does it have anything to do with what was published, only what was not published.

I don't really see it having any real point when the discussion is not relying on immediate newspaper sources and crappy websites.

Posted by: Milton Roe

Some of this is has been addressed in WP:RS/IRS, but this WP guideline hasn't really come to grips with the changes in modern publishing and editing. The section of WP:V (a policy, stronger than a guideline) which deals with the RS issue has a more general "aim-driven" or "result-driven" outlook, and in the process, actually manages to wiser than the specific WP:IRS guideline that purports to tell people how to identify reliable sources, and generally does a crappy job of it, due to having an antique fetish for dead trees which is wholely unjustified.

Here's the problem and the reason for it: having something printed on paper (particularly a good grade of paper, with binding) in the past was a good marker for how much money was being spent to produce the content, and that (in turn) acted as a PROXY for how much care was taken to insure that the editing (both copy-editing and content-editing) had been thoroughly done. As the cost of printing things on paper has dropped, this works less and less well. The technological reasons for the drop in cost are irrelevant, as are mundane matters like what printing process is used and where the printers are physically located. Doesn't matter. It was print-run cost that did the useful quality-sorting deed, and that metric is really all we care about, when it come to reliability. It's not a great metric, but I think everybody agrees that anything that weakens it (makes paper printing cheaper) weakens whatever salutory effect this criterion has.

By contrast, there DO exist publishers that are extraordinarily careful to peer-review their content, like the major academic journals, and (in book printing) the "academic" publishing houses like Wiley, Springer, Elsevier, etc. These guys really do what WP has no will or means to do, which to check the academic standing and CV's of the content editors whose names go on the front cover as "authors" of the book (I've done this job myself a few times). Such editors often do some copy editing, too, since some of this needs to be done by subject-matter experts (SMEs), and can't be done by the cheap copy-editor hired by the publishing house. Those last sort being English majors with B.A.'s from somewhere, who haven't gotten into law school, and meanwhile are hired by the publishing house to do the final brushup on text, where half the "he's" are replaced by "she's" and all the en-dashes are properly changed to em-dashes, the semicolons are killed, and that sort of stuff. . At the end of several rounds of this back-and-forth between SMEs and copy-editors, it really doesn't matter if the end-product ever sees paper; it has nevertheless been vetted by the fact-checking process that WP wants to outsource, since it doesn't trust (and has no means to verify) that its own WP "editors" are anything more than copy editors and sentence re-arrangers. WP's goal has always been to outsource all of its SME content-editing to ANYBODY else other than the people who write WP.

My own feeling is that the increased ease of paper-publishing along with falling standards for the same, should make the dead-tree criterion less and less important to WP (if it was rationally seeking a summary of "true" or "good" information, which is itself debatable). Of course, in the meantime we have "wars" between sources that meet the paper criterion but haven't been content-edited well (the paper books printed directly from WP articles being a prime example), vs. the perfectly valid academic sources that are heavily content-edited and peer-reviewd, but never see paper, and are only available online. On WP, somebody needs to get their act together and stress what they WANT DONE, not HOW TO DO IT. That's the essence of good generalship: you tell your troops what you want to happen and by what deadline, and let them astound you with their creativity.

Posted by: lilburne

The main trouble with RS on WP is that those using them are able to apply any judgement to what they are sourcing. If something is considered a RS then one can put aside credulity as everything it publishes is TRUE.

The whole process reminds me of gulls flocking around the municipal garbage dump.

Posted by: Gruntled

Milton, you really must read what Ottava says. He has pointed out very firmly that publishing houses like Wiley and Springer can't be regarded as notable publishers because they don't do their own printing. The same applies to the publishers of many academic journals. Thus anything they publish can't be a reliable source, whatever you or I might say about how carefully they check their work. Elsevier, of course, are different. They were originally the Elzevir family of printers, so although they probably haven't done their own printing for a long time, they are respectable.

Posted by: Ottava

Oh fuck off. You are clearly trolling.

They -use- to have printers at Wiley and Sons. The page also has "Wiley has extended its print-on-paper guidebook business ".

As for Springer: "1972-73: Building of the offset-printing plant in Essen-Kettwig" and "1993: Official opening of the offset printing works in Berlin-Spandau."

Why are you even here? You are just an anonymous troll who is unable to participate in a real discussion.

Somey, can you do something about him? I proved above that he is willing to lie through his teeth to derail a conversation.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Posted by: Zoloft

Ottava, the mods do not serve as your reserve troops. They're laughing their asses off with the rest of us.

Posted by: Ottava

If they were they would make that clear, as Somey and Gomi have proven themselves capable of doing. Seeing as how they aren't, you are just mouthing off as always.

The guy made up facts about two companies that were easily proven wrong. You try to defend him by ignoring what he did. Why is that?

Exposed and then you come in. People have called both you and the other guy Poetlister. Poetlister has had many accounts at one time. Isn't it odd that you would defend him so readily and without reason?

Posted by: EricBarbour

I'm not laughing, I'm

Posted by: Zoloft

It's even odder you'd think I was defending the other guy. You have a better grasp of the English language than that.

Poetlister? Nah. Greg has proven I'm Durova.

Posted by: lilburne

The point is that once again you overreach. As always you go just that bit further than rational thought allows. Makes you look silly and what good points you had to begin with get lost in the gale of laughter. Some publishers have hived off the printing side of the business. They concentrate on deciding what to print, promoting the authors, and marketing the works, making sure that the books are positioned in the shops to get maximum exposure etc. The actual inky bit of the process is no longer the core part of the business.



Naw he thinks I'm Poetlister. Give a little longer and he'll convince himself I'm the Pope.

Posted by: Kelly Martin

Whether or not a source is reliable for any particular purpose is not a question which ought to be answered by determining whether or not it was printed on a press directly owned by its publisher. There is no rational basis for such a rule.

Posted by: Ottava

Durova actually has something worth while to say. You are just an anonymous troll who derails discussions.

Posted by: SB_Johnny

Hey! Stop being logical!


Oh yeah? Well he thinks I'm Satan himself. So neener neener, and please give me your souls when you get a chance.

Posted by: thekohser

Now I see the connection... goat head pentagrams, dancing through my head, Ol' Scratch.

Posted by: EricBarbour

Posted by: Zoloft

That is one of my favorite graphics. I go see P&T every time I troll Las Vegas. Buy their books! They are hilarious and will teach you how to do a card force and other sleight-of-hand tricks.

As far as the tattered remains of this thread:

One way Wikipedia could mend itself would be to better define a reliable source. Instead of eliminating some mass media as completely unreliable, there could be a grade of reliability applied to each source, reviewed periodically.

A reliability score on each article would be nice too. You could build a formula to determine this and have it applied by a bot.

There, those are my insane ideas for today.

Posted by: KD Tries Again

You said they "merely" organize or copy edit. Not at all. Editors (not copy editors) take responsibility for what is published, and have the experience and qualifications to do so.* This is why editors are senior to content producers. Hence my assertion that Wikipedia needs editors.

*Let us stipulate that I am not talking about bad editors.



I am not sure I've understood this correctly, but if it's saying that nothing published by Rupert Murdoch's company can be a reliable source, it's kind of silly. Of course, it might not be saying that. Hard to tell.