Misplaced Pages

Revision as of 20:21, 4 January 2006

• Talk archive 1 (from the beginning to 22 May 2005).
• Talk archive 2 (from 12 July 2005 to 23 December 2005).

About AEQ

I think your analysis of article quality sounds quite reasonable (for articles on a topic without the possibility of new developments, that is), and it would be interesting to see it backed up with some research. If we assume that this hypothesis is correct, though, it is still possible for the kind of protection you discuss to have a negative impact on the whole of the encyclopedia, even though it would be best for any given article. One thing that could have that effect is if the edit rate of unprotected articles and/or article creation rate slows down (or doesn't accelerate as fast as now) when the rate of protected articles goes up. That might sound a bit strange, but I think this hypothesis can be justified: Misplaced Pages grows as fast as it does because we get an influx of new editors proportional to the number of readers we have. A percentage of our readers also help out by editing our articles. This is consistent with the exponential increase in articles we have seen for the last few years. However: By increasing the percentage of protected articles, more readers will experience not being able to improve the article they want, and this will probably discourage them from editing. Thus, raising the percentage of protected articles could reduce the percentage of readers who become editors, effectively increasing the doubling time of Misplaced Pages's growth. Effectively, the > AEQ articles are protected at the < AEQ articles' expense. What do you think about this hypothesis? Amaurea 23:16, 27 December 2005 (UTC)

Salut! vreau sa te propun admin. Ai dori? -- Bonaparte talk 08:24, 28 December 2005 (UTC)

Yes, the negative effects I described depend on the number of protected articles, or more precisely, the visibility of the protected articles, that is: the ratio of articles an average user sees that are protected. As long as it is unlikely to encounter a protected article, like it is now, this isn't anything to worry about. On the other hand: If only a tiny minority of articles are going to be protected in this way, the relative benefit of this policy would also be tiny. It seems to me, then, to be unlikely that this policy would only be used for 1 article a day, like you suggested. It is true that only one article is featured every day (though more articles can get featured article status per day than that, they are just not displayed more than one at a time), but with exponential growth of the Misplaced Pages, we must also expect the number of fleshed-out good quality articles to increase in the same way, and probably to make out a fixed ratio of the total number of articles. These articles, then, would be the ones it would be logical to apply this policy too. It is, after all, being proposed to protect "finished" articles. To summarize: I do not think the ratio of protected articles will fall off, but rather (after this has had time to get going) stay at a fixed level, and that the articles that end up protected will be some of the most visible articles, making the effect even greater. (I also believe that none of our articles should be considered finished, since we are tracking a moving target, but that is beside the point for this argument). Amaurea 12:21, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Unbelievable. Who would judge the "quality"? Some elitist board? I recommend you read "On Liberty" by John Stuart Mill --he explains the value of interminable controversy. If you want something that's permanent, write a book. A closed article is for closed minds. RJII 01:52, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Why not have a regonised expert to review the quality of an article? It does not have to be some elite board. An archived quality article that has passed an elite review does not prevent further editing, does it? If wikipedia does not care what the elite think, why the big rush to change the errors in Misplaced Pages that nature magazine highlighted? David D. (Talk) 02:10, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Good luck with that. Jimbo Wales is very "anti-credentialist." Misplaced Pages is about decentralization and individualism, with as little centralized authority as is necessary to maintain law and order. RJII 02:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

On the contrary, wikipedia is all about centralization. We are centralizing the internet. Before wikipedia, if someone wanted to read about X, he would do a Google search for X and come up with a bunch of more or less related webpages. He would then have to read a number of them to get the information he was looking for (and, as the case may be, get a glimpse of the various different POV's). Now, thanks to wikipedia, less people read a multitude of webpages and more people read a single article - the wiki article about X. That's centralization. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 10:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

That's centralization of information. You should have known I was talking about decentralization of power. There is no elitist board that decrees an article as good or bad and then forbids anyone from editing it. Judgement of good or bad is left to each individual. What you're suggesting is the anti-thesis of the philosophy behind the creation of Misplaced Pages. If you want to build you own little fascist internet nation where an elite group determines good or bad for everyone, feel free to, but Misplaced Pages is not the place. RJII 01:59, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

The primary goal of wikipedia, overriding all others, is to build a good encyclopedia. If dogmatic adherence to some mystical "Wiki Way" fails to achieve that goal, then we need to revise the Wiki Way. So far, the Wiki Way has worked pretty well, but there is room for improvement. Of course, I wouldn't expect an ideologue like yourself to understand pragmatism. And I find it very amusing how you imply that every other encyclopedia ever made is "fascist". -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 08:33, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

He may be anti credentialist but there are plenty of people in wikipedia with credentials. You could have fooled me with the "as little centralized authority as is necessary". Have you seen how much effort is put into RfC and Arb com, AfD and RfA? It's a complete beaurocracy just wasting editors time. And why is that required? Because any individual can write anything they want. So, in fact, letting anyone edit actually creates more beaurocracy. David D. (Talk) 02:39, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Article quality is already judged when making the decision to promote articles to featured status. As for Mill's notion that continual and unrestricted public debate will favor the truth, it is ridiculous and laughable. Continual and unrestricted public debate does not promote ideas that are true; it promotes ideas that have the largest and most dedicated team of propagandists advocating them. Misplaced Pages greatly suffers because of this. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 02:13, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

All I can say is, I'm glad that you'll probably never head a real life government. I can see it now ..all published material would be subject to a "board of quality" and no books could be revised until the "experts" OK'd it (See fascism). But, if you want that kind of a thing start your own website --what you propose will never happen on Misplaced Pages, as it's essentially contrary to what Misplaced Pages is about. RJII 02:25, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

All published material is already subject to various boards of quality composed of experts - see peer review. This doesn't mean that you can't publish anything if the experts don't OK it; it means your claims won't be taken seriously unless the experts OK them. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 10:46, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Who said anything about a government??? this is an encylopedia. I've also noticed this loudest voice/biggest bully wins in wikipedia. Of course if wikipedia wants to remain the second choice to credible text books I suppose we could go with Mill's view. I also might pont out that a real thinker can always be critical of a book. To say that "A closed article is for closed minds." makes no sense at all. 02:29, 3 January 2006 (UTC)David D. (Talk)

Socialism and sexual orientation

I notice you have put an NPOV tag on this article. I agree it would benefit from work - there has been a recent discussion on its talk page; I wondered if you could highlight the particular problems you see with it. Thanks, Warofdreams talk 00:17, 30 December 2005 (UTC)

Trivia on the soviet university system

Thanks for cutting that stuff from the ML page. I was mistaken to have added it. --DuncanBCS 00:13, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Interesting comments on Misplaced Pages:Stable versions

I found this to be very interesting and well thought out! I think you've hit the nail on the head with regards to how quality improves over time, though I don't agree with locking articles down. - Ta bu shi da yu 09:22, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

I too found this interesting. Another variation is to lock down a copy of an article when it peaks but allow the main article to be edited. A link on the main article could highlight the locked down version for readers. The reason for maintaining a live version is that new information could be added even as the quality erodes but the later, inevitable, peak could be an even higher quality. If that point is reached it may replace the locked down copy if there is a consensus that it is no longer the better version. David D. (Talk) 22:12, 2 January 2006 (UTC)

Very good suggestion. I think (hope?) that the community is arriving at some sort of consensus around the idea that high-quality articles should have both a live ("dynamic") version and a snapshot ("stable") version. The live one should probably be on top, with a large banner linking to the most recent stable version. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 02:19, 3 January 2006 (UTC)

Vandalism

Please cease your reverts of my edits, particularly at List of political epithets. -- Nikodemos (f.k.a. Mihnea) 18:13, 4 January 2006 (UTC)

Please cease your groundless allegations of vandalism. My moderate edits made in good faith to correct obvious pov are not vandalism. WOOKIEwantMEDAL 20:20, 4 January 2006 (UTC)