[X] My Assistant

[Moulton]

Two hypothetical models of Wikipedia...

Model #1. Wikipedia is a marketplace of ideas. Ideas live and die on their merits. People live and die based on the merit of their ideas.

Model #2. Wikipedia is a marketplace of personalities. People live and die based on the force of their personalities. Ideas live and die based on the personalities of their proponents.

[Jonny Cache]

Two hypothetical models of Wikipedia …

Model #1. Wikipedia is a marketplace of ideas. Ideas live and die on their merits. People live and die based on the merit of their ideas.

Model #2. Wikipedia is a marketplace of personalities. People live and die based on the force of their personalities. Ideas live and die based on the personalities of their proponents.

I like a high-falutin hypothesis more than most folks — and if a «Marketplace of Personalities» is a place where people who don't have a personality can go to get one, I can certainly see how lots of Wikipedians would be interested in that — but I also see the need for a practical field guide that would provide investigators with a thread through the maze of concrete data and the maya of concerted deception that we know as Wikipedia.

Jon Awbrey

{{↓Begin Digression↓}}

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Thu 13th December 2007, 5:31pm

[Moulton]

"Personalities" is a euphemism for "odd characters."

[Astlor]

"Personalities" is a euphemism for "odd characters."

I understand "odd" as being a synonym for abnormal. To define this, do you then not have to define "normal"?

Isn't the an even moderately acceptible definition of normal functionally impossible?

Thus that would make (by minor leap of logic,) "Personalities" a euphemism for "anyone who doesn't agree with me/themajority/thehivemind." Since wikipedia seems to be about conforming on the most absolute of levels...wouldn't this make Wikipedia Review the marketplace for personalities...and wikipedia the potential market?

[Moulton]

Conforming to the modal characteristic implies a unimodal distribution. The most ubiquitous unimodal distribution is the Normal Distribution. While personality traits are multidimensional, each dimension might be approximated by a normal distribution over the general population. Standout personalities must have at least some crucial dimensions of the personality out in the tails of the normal distribution.

[Astlor]

Conforming to the modal characteristic implies a unimodal distribution. The most ubiquitous unimodal distribution is the Normal Distribution. While personality traits are multidimensional, each dimension might be approximated by a normal distribution over the general population. Standout personalities must have at least some crucial dimensions of the personality out in the tails of the normal distribution.

This requires what I would call arbitrary assignment of personality traits to dimensions. In the most basic form, you have to chose a series of emotional states that (according to the person creating the dimensional map,) are related. Thus you can create a gradient od some form, and call that a dimension. Repeat until you have either a) run out of emotions that you can qualify, or met your aribtrary pre-set number of dimensions.

Then you have to attempt to assign that personality a position on each gradient (dimension) and, yes, you're right, you could use Normal Distribution then to try to map what a "normal" person is.

The problem is that linking any emotions as related to eachother in order to form even a single gradient in the first place, and then assigning a personality, (based on what, observation? Expression? Action? EEG?) to a position on that gradient are entirely arbitrary! And who decides what emotions are related? The majority? Experts? An algorithm? Even the experts will agree we don't know nearly enough about psychology to make anything more than a "moderately reliable refereence" to map personalities, let alone attempt to mathmatically model them.

Until emotions/personality traits can be quantified, then determining "normal" is at best, a game of educated guessing, at worst...a crapshoot.

[Moulton]

Emotions are just one of eight fundamental dimensions of personality.

And within emotions, there are perhaps a dozen distinct axes, such as Boredom-Interest, Anxiety-Confidence, Embarrassment-Pride, etc.

The measurement and quantification of emotions is an active area of current research in Neuroscience and Affective Computing.

[Astlor]

Emotions are just one of eight fundamental dimensions of personality.

And within emotions, there are perhaps a dozen distinct axes, such as Boredom-Interest, Anxiety-Confidence, Embarrassment-Pride, etc.

The measurement and quantification of emotions is an active area of current research in Neuroscience and Affective Computing.

Oh indeed, and you could bust out the MMPI, or any of a dozen others to attempt to quantify the "mind" of a person...but none of them are exact. Thus the ambiguity. I don't deny that 'normal' can be attempted with some minor degree of sucess, but there remains, at least at our current understanding, quite a bit of "wiggle room" in any possible definition.

And that's without even getting into the fact that modern psychiatry, neuroscience, pharmo-neurology etc. all have different ideas and "camps" which are themselves fractured on the subject.

...math is much cleaner.

[Moulton]

Even atomic physics has its Uncertainty Principle.

That's why many scientific models are probabilistic in nature.

Playwrights and actors can devise characters which bear an uncanny resemblance to real people. No theatrical portrayal is exact, but many of them are nonetheless insightful.

[Astlor]

Even atomic physics has its Uncertainty Principle.

That's why many scientific models are probabilistic in nature.

Playwrights and actors can devise characters which bear an uncanny resemblance to real people. No theatrical portrayal is exact, but many of them are nonetheless insightful.

No debate there. Some things we know more of than others. The science of the mind lags far behind that of the material world.

(Otherwise, they'd probably be able to 'fix' me.)

[Jonny Cache]

{{↑End Digression↑}}

The attraction of a pleasant phantasy is not strange, it will keep the unboostered mind in its orbit for many a futile revolution, but the pull of reality is formidable, it will have its day before the days are done, and the sooner we make the vaster beauty of reality visible to our planetary eyes the better for us in the long run.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Tue 18th December 2007, 1:30pm

[Jonny Cache]

Dynamic Page —

Read 'Em And Weep : Myths To Cry By

It may be necessary to create a separate thread for it eventually, but I'd like to start a dynamic page or two for collecting real-life examples of fond notions about Wikipedia that one finds are still being chanted like mindless mantras in the more clueless corners of the blogosphere. When we have done that, maybe we can begin a more systematic deconstruction of how they diverge from the reality of Wikipedia.

Jon Awbrey

Links For Later Development —

Chronicle : Wired Campus ¤ Wikipedia's Founder Says the Site Has a Place in Academe

Your assertion-in-passing about “the online encyclopedia’s efforts to improve the quality of its articles” could do with a modicum of the proverbial “further research”.

One resource for that task, staffed by knowledgeable, if occasionally Rabelaisian, in-&-out-siders, is The Wikipedia Review.

Too much commentary on what students learn from Wikipedia stops with the content of articles and fails to examine what students learn from participating in the culture of Wikipedia.

Educators know that education is as much about process as it is about product. They understand that students “learn by doing”, by taking part in communities of practice. What do students learn by playing the Wikipedia online game? Answers to that question can be gleaned from those who have participated in the full range of Wikipedia activities and seen how it really operates beneath the surface. Those who wish to learn more, while escaping the troubles of personal participation, may sample the narratives and the occasional critical reflection that one finds at The Wikipedia Review.

The effects of using Wikipedia as a source of information is a research question.

The effects of participating more broadly in Wikipedian activities, from the editing game to the policy-making game, is another research question.

Even a bad source of information and a bad guide to the norms of research methodology can “up the ante on critical thinking and information literacy” — if the user is capable of reflecting on its deficiencies.

Whether Wikipedia helps or hinders the user in gaining that capacity is yet another research question.

From Wikipedia Review : Guide to Wikipedia for Reporters and Researchers

Educators are aware that learners have many different paths to knowledge. Among the most obvious are these:

1. Learning by being told.
2. Learning by doing things for oneself.
3. Learning by watching what others do.

What do people learn from participating in the full range of activities provided by the Wikipedia website, considered with regard to each of these modes?

Some of the questions that educational researchers would naturally think to ask about the Wikipedia experience are these:

1. What do people learn about the ethical norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?
2. What do people learn about the intellectual norms of journalism, research, and scholarship?

For example, questions that one might ask under the indicated headings are these:

{1 b} «What do people learn about the relative values of primary and secondary sources from reading the relevant policy pages in Wikipedia?»

{3 a} «What do people learn about plagiarism from watching what others do in Wikipedia?»

Chronicle : Wired Campus ¤ Can Google's New Open Encyclopedia Best Wikipedia?

The notion that “Wikipedia works by letting everyone write articles that are then often corrected by experts” is sadly out of keeping with the reality of Wikipedia, where articles created by knowledgeable authors are more likely to be degraded over time by hordes of inept users and power-tripping administrators who neither know nor care anything about the subject matters in question.

Dan Colman : OpenCulture ¤ Betting Against Google’s Answer to Wikipedia

The notion that “a community of writers focusing on the same text will correct one another and improve the overall product over time” or that “the final text becomes greater than the sum of its authors” is sadly out of keeping with the reality of Wikipedia, where articles created by knowledgeable authors are more likely to be degraded over time by hordes of inept users and power-tripping administrators who neither know nor care anything about the subject matters in question.

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Sun 23rd March 2008, 7:50pm

[Moulton]

Myth: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic compendium representing the sum of all human knowledge.

Myth: Wikipedia articles meet the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially with respect to the biographies of living persons.

Myth: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Myth: Content disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in a fair, judicious, and expeditious manner.

Myth: Errors and personal invective are promptly and courteously refactored in a spirit of good will.

Myth: The leadership at the top of the project are uniformly of impeccably high character.

This post has been edited by Moulton: Wed 16th January 2008, 2:52pm

[Jonny Cache]

Myth: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic compendium representing the sum of all human knowledge.

Myth: Wikipedia articles meet the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially with respect to the biographies of living persons.

Myth: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Myth: Content disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in a fair, judicious, and expeditious manner.

Myth: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic compendium representing the sum of all human knowledge.

Myth: Wikipedia articles meet the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially with respect to the biographies of living persons.

Myth: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Myth: Content disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in a fair, judicious, and expeditious manner.

Myth: Errors and personal invective are promptly and courteously refactored in a spirit of good will.

Myth: The leadership at the top of the project are uniformly of impeccably high character.

These are of course manifestly typical examples of hyper-ventilated Wikipediot PR.

What I'm looking for here would be cases of bloggers and journalists echoing fragments of the Wikipediot Canon Shot without actually stopping to ask themselves if any of these wishful fantasies are really true, much less doing the requisite research to find out the facts of the matter.

Jon Awbrey

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 19th December 2007, 8:48pm

[Jonny Cache]

Much of the discussion above seems relevant to the project of collecting and correcting Misconceptions About Wikipedia.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 16th January 2008, 4:42am

[Jonny Cache]

Myth: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic compendium representing the sum of all human knowledge.

Myth: Wikipedia articles meet the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially with respect to the biographies of living persons.

Myth: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Myth: Content disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in a fair, judicious, and expeditious manner.

Myth: Wikipedia is an encyclopedic compendium representing the sum of all human knowledge.

Myth: Wikipedia articles meet the highest journalistic standards of accuracy, excellence, and ethics in online media, especially with respect to the biographies of living persons.

Myth: Wikipedia is the encyclopedia that anyone can edit.

Myth: Content disputes on Wikipedia are resolved in a fair, judicious, and expeditious manner.

Myth: Errors and personal invective are promptly and courteously refactored in a spirit of good will.

Myth: The leadership at the top of the project are uniformly of impeccably high character.

These are of course manifestly typical examples of hyper-ventilated Wikipediot PR.

What I'm looking for here would be cases of bloggers and journalists echoing fragments of the Wikipediot Canon Shot without actually stopping to ask themselves if any of these wishful fantasies are really true, much less doing the requisite research to find out the facts of the matter.

Jon Awbrey

I just noticed that the Op-Ediot Piece by Magnus Linklater supplies us with a timely and typical example of what I'm talking about here. It recites, chapter and verse, paragraph by paragraph, nearly the whole litany of Wikipediot Misconceits.

Jonny

This post has been edited by Jonny Cache: Wed 16th January 2008, 2:52pm

[Moulton]

When it comes to scientific modeling of cultural phenomena, the daily press is not a particularly reliable source of original scholarship. For one thing, it's not peer-reviewed.

[Jon Awbrey]

I'm beginning to think that all e-media are qwikly sliding down the silvery slop to a “bottom of the bag” condition, dragged down in large part by the grubitational dingularity we know as Wikipukia, but just in case — it could happen !!! — rag-tag bands of old school journalists and scholars yet survive within the sound of our keyboard rapping, I still see some merit in reviving this proposal one more time.

Jon Awbrey

This is a fork of a previous thread for people who are serious about developing a Guidebook that might actually be useful to external communities of reporters and researchers.

¤ ¤ ¤

I would like to propose a collaborative project for The Wikipedia Review — the development of a «Guide to Wikipedia for Reporters and Researchers».

The purpose of the Guidebook would be to help academic investigators and media commentators cut through the layers of hype, misrepresentation, and rhetoric generated by Wikipedian hawkers and shills, to facilitate the asking of more intelligent and probing questions, and to save inquirers and journalists the time that they would otherwise waste wading through the full array of hard knocks trial and error that most of us here have had to go through in order to learn what we currently know about the reality of Wikipedia.

The Guidebook that guides best will be practical, not polemic, focused on policies and practices, not just personalities. It will of course be necessary to mention concrete cases of conduct by particular agents, but it will be equally necessary to remember the overarching purpose of the Guidebook, to show interested parties the ropes of Wikipedia's riggings, not to entangle them in every last trapping of Wikipedia's dead ends.

To that end, I propose the following plan —

• To reserve the present thread for developing instructive modules, perhaps on dynamic pages, and for carrying on the necessary discussion.
• To reserve a another thread for Stable Versions of the developed modules, yielding responsibility to the Moderators for transporting individual modules to the stable thread when and if there is a general perception that the module in question is «Ready For Prime Time», as it were.

Who knows, it just might work …

¤ ¤ ¤

One of the needs that I see out there comes to mind whenever I see an academic paper, a conference presentation, a blog blurb, or a newspaper article whose authors are clearly still laboring under one or more myths about «How Wikipedia Works», specifically, the brands of fables that are cranked out by the dark satanic mills of Wikipedia's myth-representation factories.

All that illusionment strikes me as a «Cry For Help», and one of the formats that might help would be the sort of «Reality Check» that many news programs provide these days, where they present for examination one or more claims that a particular interest group happens to be promoting on the current scene and then tick off a checklist of facts that weigh pro and con that claim.

Things have been getting slightly more encouraging out there — strangely enough, rather more improved in the blogosphere than in the groves and the ivory-ivy towers of academe — so it looks like now is the time for all good Reviewers to come to the aid of whatever investigators are actually getting back to the basics of investigation.

Jon Awbrey