Vandalism is usually caught in a few seconds, or not Options Rating

[Abd]

There is Roger Davies on MZM Talk, behaving like an interrogator. Conduct unbecoming of an Arbitrator. Investigator, Prosecutor, Judge. Last one to wear so many hats was Raul654.

Fortunately, the only thing the little tyrants can do is to shoot Wikipedia in the foot.

Congratulations, MZM, though I do wonder how you deal with the sulfurous smell of these trolls sitting on your talk page.

[Abd]

As a matter of fact, I challenge any one out there to provide me with an example of a single full-length Wikipedia article (including or perhaps especially a featured one) without any factual errors or significant omissions.

I'd equally challenge you to provide an example of a standard textbook that doesn't contain any factual errors or omissions.

That's not a reasonable parallel. Even a whole chapter in a textbook is usually much longer than a WP article.

My sense is that in many areas, article quality has declined. In others, it has improved. WP process is unreliable and highly inefficient. It could easily be better, but ... It would take structure. Horrors!

It could be surprisingly close to the original design, which was almost right. The devil, though, is in the details.

[Milton Roe]

As a matter of fact, I challenge any one out there to provide me with an example of a single full-length Wikipedia article (including or perhaps especially a featured one) without any factual errors or significant omissions.

"Significant omissions" is a hard qualification, since essentially for any complex subject, it's a matter of taste.

However, I'd be interested in what you think of WP's basic coverage of physics and chem topics, like atom, chemical bond, isotope, radioactive decay, and so on. How about the wiki on science itself-- plenty of room to screw up there. Or chemical elements like hydrogen or planets like Jupiter.

[taiwopanfob]

This is hilarious. It's rather like some journalist discovering that 14% of US nuclear warheads are totally unguarded. When he sends the gov a list and a note, they respond by calling him a traitor, and waffling on about abetting terrorism.

Could be worse:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/1/7/why_i...wer_who_exposed

Anyway, so let's find a way to blame Kohs and McBride for the stupidity and lassitude of Wikipedia.

Lazy asses: they should be conducting this research, not Kohs. Yet more evidence Davies, and the other JimboJuiceHeads, don't give a shit about the BLP victims. Shit, even according to their supreme leader, whatever Kohs and accomplices do will ultimately be on Kohs head -- a fact that Kohs is undoubtedly aware.

No, these fuckers are only afraid of proof the project is founded (in part) on a falsehood -- if not an outright lie.

[Kelly Martin]

Lazy asses: they should be conducting this research, not Kohs. Yet more evidence Davies, and the other JimboJuiceHeads, don't give a shit about the BLP victims. Shit, even according to their supreme leader, whatever Kohs and accomplices do will ultimately be on Kohs head -- a fact that Kohs is undoubtedly aware.

The response to the NEWT project amply demonstrated that Wikipedia has absolutely no interest in any sort of meaningful quality assurance processes. Nobody likes QA (the role of QA, after all, is to go "YOU FUCKED UP" to people who have, in fact, fucked up), but at least most people have enough of a professional attitude about their work to understand that it matters that you do the job right. Wikipedia takes the cult of the amateur so far as to actively squash any attempt to behave professionally amongst its volunteers.

[Malleus]

The response to the NEWT project amply demonstrated that Wikipedia has absolutely no interest in any sort of meaningful quality assurance processes.

That's blatant nonsense.

[Somey]

That's blatant nonsense.

Perhaps she meant overall quality assurance, i.e., something more systematic and formalized? I'd say what they have now is fairly effective for articles that are produced by established users, particularly those who are popular within the community - but largely ineffective for articles that just appear out of nowhere, with nobody around to advocate for them on an ongoing basis. In fact, I'd say that's true of wikis in general.

[Kelly Martin]

I'd say what they have now is fairly effective for articles that are produced by established users, particularly those who are popular within the community - but largely ineffective for articles that just appear out of nowhere, with nobody around to advocate for them on an ongoing basis.

No, quite simply Wikipedia has no systematic quality assurance processes. It has a few processes that seek to identify quality work when it, by random chance, is found, but there's absolutely nothing in place to systematically enforce even minimal standards of quality, either in terms of content or in terms of customer service. Even the barest minimum of quality standards (keeping articles free from obvious vandalism) is managed by a random, unsupervised process . There is simply no systematic review process, and individual articles can easily be left unreviewed for years if nobody happens across one of them.

[Milton Roe]

I'd say what they have now is fairly effective for articles that are produced by established users, particularly those who are popular within the community - but largely ineffective for articles that just appear out of nowhere, with nobody around to advocate for them on an ongoing basis.

No, quite simply Wikipedia has no systematic quality assurance processes. It has a few processes that seek to identify quality work when it, by random chance, is found, but there's absolutely nothing in place to systematically enforce even minimal standards of quality, either in terms of content or in terms of customer service. Even the barest minimum of quality standards (keeping articles free from obvious vandalism) is managed by a random, unsupervised process . There is simply no systematic review process, and individual articles can easily be left unreviewed for years if nobody happens across one of them.

Yes. I'm afraid that so far as WMF goes, William Deming has lived in vain. What need is there for total quality management when you have a founder-lock on the market (thus no competition), live on donations, and your donors are not that picky with either their time or money? No business would survive this model (and, as a matter of fact, none of Jimbo's for-profits have). But WMF, as a monster parasite, not a mutualistic business-structure, is quite another matter.

Evolution is necessary for improvement of anything (organism to organization) but it doesn't work unless you close the feedback QC loop. Our favorite Weiner (Norbert) figured this out long ago, and this is the essential message of cybernetics as an idea. It's got nothing to do with the Borg and everything to do with measuring improvement objectively.

The real question of interest is how, without such feed-back quality control loop closure, WP manages to improve at all

My own answer to this is somewhat incredible, but see if you can do better: I think WP improves only through the efforts of a bunch of dedicated editors, who watch individual articles, and REMEMBER (I mean like, in their heads) which versions of which articles are pretty good. And which others of a very small group of other editors are to be trusted to edit. This info is not even written down, let alone kept track of, with anything so high-tech as a computerized spreadsheat. It's sort of like the mafia.

I know. The irony of this is razor sharp, but so far as I can tell, I don't overstate the case. Wikipedia is a moon rocket or aircraft carrier run by bunches of people who know each other's reps like an organized street gang, with no "books" (except when fighting breaks out). Think of NASA managed by Post-It notes and real time managers' memories which are not committed to paper. No CV's allowed. In most cases, no personnel files. And no master plans or blueprints-- the rockets under construction serve as their own blueprints, since they can be duplicated in any state at will, and stored in a monster warehouse of old prototypes.

Think what one could do with all this if it had even a ghost of a business or production model behind it! Alas, the people who run WMF do not come from the sphere of successful private entrepeneurs. They're rather like Obama's cabenet in that regard (most presidents in this century have had cabinets in which half of the people can from private business-- Obama runs 8%).

When you have a bunch of lawyers and former government employees trying to run a modern auto company (like GM) you get some hilarious moments. It all reminds you of King Canute and the tides. For Wikipedia, there isn't even the real-world feedback of car-sales. I have no idea what forces exist from "reality" to snap them back into some kind of contact with it. Maybe none.

[Malleus]

That's blatant nonsense.

Perhaps she meant overall quality assurance, i.e., something more systematic and formalized? I'd say what they have now is fairly effective for articles that are produced by established users, particularly those who are popular within the community - but largely ineffective for articles that just appear out of nowhere, with nobody around to advocate for them on an ongoing basis. In fact, I'd say that's true of wikis in general.

I'd probably be inclined to agree with that assessment.

This post has been edited by Malleus: Sun 10th January 2010, 9:32pm

[John Limey]

As a matter of fact, I challenge any one out there to provide me with an example of a single full-length Wikipedia article (including or perhaps especially a featured one) without any factual errors or significant omissions.

"Significant omissions" is a hard qualification, since essentially for any complex subject, it's a matter of taste.

However, I'd be interested in what you think of WP's basic coverage of physics and chem topics, like atom, chemical bond, isotope, radioactive decay, and so on. How about the wiki on science itself-- plenty of room to screw up there. Or chemical elements like hydrogen or planets like Jupiter.

Alright, I've had a look at "atom" as its featured and thus presumably quite a good article. Here's what I have so far:

" In approximately 450 BCE, Democritus coined the term átomos (Greek: ἄτομος), which means "uncuttable" or "the smallest indivisible particle of matter"." Britannica places the year at about 430 BCE, a figure born out by the article Stocker, Arthur Frederick. "Atomic Theories Ancient and Modern." The Classical Journal. Volume 43, No. 7 (1948). Given that Democritus was born around 460 (this year is widely accepted, and appears in Wikipedia's own article) and given the supreme unlikeliness that Democritus coined the term at the age of 10, this is undoubtedly an error, and one that shouldn't have been too hard to catch. It is admittedly a rather minor error, but an error is an error.

There is also an important omission here, namely the significance of Epicurus who developed the theory of Democritus and Leucippus more fully, systemized it, and popularized it. As you say, determining what counts as a significant omission is a matter of taste, but the several accounts I've looked at all mention Epicurus.

The article also asserts " Although the Indian and Greek concepts of the atom were based purely on philosophy, modern science has retained the name coined by Democritus." Once again, this is wrong, and in more ways than one. In the first place, speaking of a Greek concept of the atom generally is misleading, as there were significant differences among the views of different Greeks (Johnson, Harold. "Three Ancient Meanings of Matter: Democritus, Plato, and Aristotle" Journal of the History of Ideas. Vol. 28, No. 1 (1967)). More importantly, Democritus's concept was not based "purely on philosophy", instead Stocker writes that "it was a closely reasoned deduction from observed phenomena of nature" (Stocker 396). This view is borne out in a variety of other articles including Luthy, Christoph "The Fourfold Democritus on the Stage of Early Modern Science". Isis. Vol. 91, no. 3 (2000). As a matter of fact, Karl Marx even wrote on Greek Atomism and noted that Democritus was engaged in "an empirical search for positive knowledge of the world" (Bailey, Cyril. "Karl Marx on Greek Atomism". The Classical Quarterly. Vol. 22. No. 3/4. (1928)). Once again, we find an error that is small, but it is still an error, and certainly one that would not be made by a historian of science.

Corpusculanarianism is done poorly as well. To Boyle, and most of his contemporaries, corpuscularianism was a way of bringing together Cartesian and Atomist thought on matter and stands in opposition to Aristotelian views (a fact entirely and I would say significantly omitted, which is present in all the relevant literature, and is important to one's understanding). See Hall, Marie Boas. "Boyle's Method of Work: Promoting His Corpuscular Philosophy". Notes and Records of the Royal Society of London. Vol 41, no 2. (1987).

There are also true errors in the paragraph on corpuscularaniasm. It attributes the theory to Geber, but recent scholarship has shown that the manuscript in question (Summa perfectionis) is "ascribed falsely to Jabir ibn Hayyan or Geber, and actually written by an occidental around the thirteenth century" (Newman, William. "The Alchemical Sources of Robert Boyle's Corpuscular Philosophy". Annals of Science. Vol. 53, No. 6. (1996)). It is possible that this is merely an error in Wikipedia's sources which it has reproduced, but I am not certain.

The article also misstates just what early corpusculaniasm asserted, stating its views as "all physical bodies possess an inner and outer layer of minute particles or corpuscles." In fact, the early view spoke only of metals, and is far more complex that what Wikipedia presents. THe statement "In this manner, for example, it was theorized that mercury could penetrate into metals and modify their inner structure" is plain wrong. Summa perfectionis argues that all metals are composed of sulphur and mercury. Mercury particles were believed to be "composed of uniformly tiny particles" allowing it to penetrate small gaps. Because all metals are composed of mercury and sulfur, the addition of more sulfur would change the composition of a metal. (Newman 571-572).

Finally, the statement that corpusculanarianism was "blended with alchemy by Boyle and Isaac Newton" is nonsensical. Corpusculanariasm, as found in Summa perfectionis, was developed by alchemists. Thus, it was inherently blended with alchemy.

So, for those of you keeping score at home. In the first three paragraph subsection of the "Atom" article there are at least 5 errors (mostly ones that are admittedly minor) and several significant omissions. If this demonstration alone is not satisfactory, I would be happy to continue going through the article.

[Malleus]

As a matter of interest, have you never read a standard textbook on a subject in which you have some expertise and found errors? I have certainly have, many times, occasionally prompting me to contact the publisher, as in one case involving Academic Press, for a blatant copyright violation.

This post has been edited by Malleus: Mon 11th January 2010, 12:00am

[John Limey]

As a matter of interest, have you never read a standard textbook on a subject in which you have some expertise and found errors? I have certainly have, many times, occasionally prompting me to contact the publisher, as in one case involving Academic Press, for a blatant copyright violation.

Sure I've seen errors in textbooks, but they are neither as serious nor as numerous as the errors of Wikipedia. In any case, your point is?

This post has been edited by Limey: Mon 11th January 2010, 2:15am

[Milton Roe]

So, for those of you keeping score at home. In the first three paragraph subsection of the "Atom" article there are at least 5 errors (mostly ones that are admittedly minor) and several significant omissions. If this demonstration alone is not satisfactory, I would be happy to continue going through the article.

Please do. I suppose I knew subconsciously that this particular section was crap, overlarded as it has been by generations of editors who seem to want us to believe that their ancestors discovered or postulated "atoms" first.

It is indeed true that the Greek concept (at least that of SOME Greeks) was not based entirely on philosophy. Clearly there were little invisible particles coming off things and floating about directionally and gradient-wise, as anybody who has observed the diffusion of the odor of baking bread can tell you. You don't need to see these things; merely observe that they behave like diffusion of any substance that you CAN see. For that matter, the diffusion of things you can see (a soluble dye in water) behaves so much like the diffusive behavior of things that are manifestly (directly observably) particulate (particles of finely ground dye, say) that it's clear that the same thing is happening in other kinds of diffusion (smells, colored water), only at scales you can't see, with particles much smaller. Induction.

The Greek concept of "atom" evolved, but for some, was in SOME ways like what we today call a "molecule"-- it was the smallest division you could cut a thing into, before it lost its properties (at least those which emerge when the particles were recondensed, like steam). That you might be able to subdivide things farther than THAT (going into smaller bits which did NOT have the original's properties, here hydrogen and oxygen for water) seems not to have occured to the Greeks-- you have to go clear to Dalton (or in some ways, Newton) for it! And yet isn't it such a simple hypothesis? It could have been differentiated and discussed millennia before it was.

The article also isn't forceful enough that what we chemically call an "atom" today was pre-maturely named if we truly want it to stand for the indivisible (uncutable = a-tom) properties of the invisible particles of the Greeks. If we wanted to use the term literally, we'd reserve it for the various classes of elementary fermions (quarks, leptons) which we believe (at least presently) have no sub-structure. In that sense, it's not at all clear if Epicurus with his "atoms and the void" was really meaning to talk about chemical atoms, instead of about whatever the "elementary" particles are (elementary fermions, perhaps even guage bosons--- anything that isn't vacuum but can't be subdivided). Today we think that electrons are elementary, but we don't really know. How would one know when one has finally hit upon Greek a-toms?

Anyway, just quit the crappy history. It's a great example of the fact that we don't really know what the ancients meant half the time because we can't get into their minds, and our present concepts are different from theirs, but it's very hard to map one to the other. I suppose the same thing happens in trying to define Latin words for anything, not just objects. And on top of that, we hardly have any original Democratus texts and nothing of Leucippus so it's an even more difficult problem to try to figure out if the ancients meant one thing or another. The WP article atomism does a better job here, and probably should be used to summarize and purge the junky stuff from the history section of atom. How embarassing.

Okay, move on to the physics and chem! Please!

[Malleus]

As a matter of interest, have you never read a standard textbook on a subject in which you have some expertise and found errors? I have certainly have, many times, occasionally prompting me to contact the publisher, as in one case involving Academic Press, for a blatant copyright violation.

Sure I've seen errors in textbooks, but they are neither as serious nor as numerous as the errors of Wikipedia. In any case, your point is?

My point is that there are errors and omissions in any product of human endeavour, even those you choose not to criticise.

This post has been edited by Malleus: Mon 11th January 2010, 3:31am

[taiwopanfob]

My point is that there are errors and omissions in any product of human endeavour, even those you choose not to criticise.

The value of sum(error*impact) , over all errors, is much, much, larger for Wikipedia than a typical textbook. That the value of this expression is non-zero for all "[products] of human endeavour" is, at best, a rhetorical distraction. You might as well make the "point" that the color of newly fallen snow is white.

[Somey]

The value of sum(error*impact) , over all errors, is much, much, larger for Wikipedia than a typical textbook.

Interesting assertion - as long as college professors continue to tell their students not to cite, or even use, Wikipedia in coursework, then people can at least hope that the textbook's impact is going to be greater for students in those courses, at least. Then again, maybe not... Obviously WP's impact on the reading public in general and society at large is now considerably greater, though one might also argue that the reading public in general has little or no interest in highly-specialized topics (which might traditionally be covered in textbooks) in the first place.

The last several posts in this thread have been pretty much off-topic, so maybe I should split it, but at the risk of making things worse, there really is a lot of corruption in the textbook business - the things have always been overpriced, but there's also a lot of glad-handing and sweetheart contracts and so on, people taking full advantage of the captive audience/market. I've heard stories that are genuinely shameful, though most of them predate the internet.

If the web forces textbook publishers to be a little more honest and fair with their customers, then that's a good thing, but if it forces them all out of business completely, that's a bad thing - that kind of market-level expertise isn't easy to come by, and there's little evidence that online course materials (which would presumably replace textbooks) are ever going to represent a real improvement, especially if suchmaterials are being altered while courses are actually taking place.

[Malleus]

My point is that there are errors and omissions in any product of human endeavour, even those you choose not to criticise.

The value of sum(error*impact) , over all errors, is much, much, larger for Wikipedia than a typical textbook. That the value of this expression is non-zero for all "[products] of human endeavour" is, at best, a rhetorical distraction. You might as well make the "point" that the color of newly fallen snow is white.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

[thekohser]

As a matter of interest, have you never read a standard textbook on a subject in which you have some expertise and found errors? I have certainly have, many times, occasionally prompting me to contact the publisher, as in one case involving Academic Press, for a blatant copyright violation.

Sure I've seen errors in textbooks, but they are neither as serious nor as numerous as the errors of Wikipedia. In any case, your point is?

My point is that there are errors and omissions in any product of human endeavour, even those you choose not to criticise.

Have any of those textbooks been published by a tax-advantaged non-profit "charity" that also allows its Founder Emeritus to skim some of the money (as a landlord) back to his for-profit commercial enterprise? Any of the textbooks have had content smoothed out about a subject, just prior to meeting the subject in a Washington, DC Doubletree Hotel suite for a night of fun?

That surely would have raised a stink in academic and publishing circles, alike, don't you think?

Anyway, thank you for inadvertently making our point for us, Malleus.

[taiwopanfob]

My point is that there are errors and omissions in any product of human endeavour, even those you choose not to criticise.

The value of sum(error*impact) , over all errors, is much, much, larger for Wikipedia than a typical textbook. That the value of this expression is non-zero for all "[products] of human endeavour" is, at best, a rhetorical distraction. You might as well make the "point" that the color of newly fallen snow is white.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course.

You might as well make the "point" that the color of newly fallen snow is white ... wait a minute!