4 ms·

A verifiability meter is a reasonable suggestion, but it won't stop make much of a difference to Wikipedia's deeper problems, most of which come down to the use

A verifiability meter is a reasonable suggestion, but it won't stop make much of a difference to Wikipedia's deeper problems, most of which come down to the use of the wiki as a content creation tool in the first place. For those interested, I've written an outline of Wikipedia's software problems [1]. None of these problems are going to be fixed any time soon -- the leadership simply isn't there. [1]http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/ http://newslines.org/blog/wikipedias-13-deadly-sins/

noir_lord 10y ago
It would be a fun project to take the wikidumps, extract the data and put it into something more like what you are talking about in that blog post, be a fairly massive task to do completely though.
yetanotheracc 10y ago
Policy wise, this comment is a blatant violation of [[WP:COI]] and [[WP:SPAM]]. Substantially, I am so glad that Wikipedia is governed by the community. Otherwise, it would be a matter of time until some young, bright and dynamic manager decided to implement a subset of the "improvements" you propose - with a disastrous effect.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  I'm not saying Wikipedia should make those improvements; I am saying there are better models for content production. Wikipedia can't make those improvements anyway, as its community is extremely conservative, and despite the power it has, it cannot make any changes to the software. The best you can hope for is window dressing.
- davidgerard 10y ago
  Newslines is the guy's startup, aspiring to compete with Wikipedia.
  - sparkzilla 10y ago
    Actually we are much bigger than just competing with Wikipedia. We combine aspects of Wikipedia, daily news, Youtube, LinkedIn and (coming soon) Facebook.
    - chris_wot 10y ago
      Sounds like a lot of competing interests. Best of luck to you, but I think you'll find this hard to accomplish well.
      - sparkzilla 10y ago
        Thanks!
tmptmp 10y ago
From the site you linked >>There are the obvious display problems: Wikipedia pages look like a dull grey textbook. Almost every page is an over-long stream of text with hardly any video or even images. Pages about movies don’t even have trailers. This has big implications for kids brought up using visual media like Instagram and YouTube who are not interested in getting information about their favorite movies, musicians and celebrities from a textbook. Wikipedia's aim may not be to become popular by just being an eye-candy. One of their features, what you call there as "dull grey textbook" is what I like very much. It allows the reader to read the thing comfortably and it also helps the pages load faster. >>As the quote goes: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. May be for some people this is true. But many people serious about studying a topic actually may find written material quite important and helpful. Wikipedia is about providing knowledge about topics, so if music is a topic it can provide knowledge about it and knowledge about something is not only that thing. There are many meta properties (outcomes of analysis, comparisons etc) that can be described meaningfully and concisely only in writing and are important. >>Over the past few months Newslines writers have added over 22,000 posts without a single edit war or controversy. If you stick to only some news (e.g. celebrity news) you won't get much controversy. But wikipedia is not for just news topics. It has provided space for many oppressed groups to post their views which are sure to generate controversy. (e.g. see these pages [1],[2],[3]) Your comparison of that site [4] with Wikipedia is therefore not has much foundation. I don't say that there is no need to improve Wikipedia but it requires better and deeper understanding and appreciation of Wikipedia, its readership and its goals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Marxism [4] http://newslines.org/ http://newslines.org/
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  >Wikipedia's aim may not be to become popular by just being an eye-candy. One of their features, what you call there as "dull grey textbook" is what I like very much. It allows the reader to read the thing comfortably and it also helps the pages load faster. The format may suit you, but text, especially text in the long-form articles that are standard for Wikipedia is a poor format for the news-based articles that are the most popular on Wikipedia. >If you stick to only some news (e.g. celebrity news) you won't get much controversy. But wikipedia is not for just news topics. It has provided space for many oppressed groups to post their views which are sure to generate controversy. Wikipedia is a very expensive (time and energy) way to get information out to the public. Sending a video to Twitter and Facebook are easier and more shareable. >I don't say that there is no need to improve Wikipedia but it requires better and deeper understanding and appreciation of Wikipedia, its readership and its goals. Even with this, good luck getting any meaningful change from the Wikimedia Foundation.

noir_lord 10y ago

It would be a fun project to take the wikidumps, extract the data and put it into something more like what you are talking about in that blog post, be a fairly massive task to do completely though.

yetanotheracc 10y ago

Policy wise, this comment is a blatant violation of [[WP:COI]] and [[WP:SPAM]]. Substantially, I am so glad that Wikipedia is governed by the community. Otherwise, it would be a matter of time until some young, bright and dynamic manager decided to implement a subset of the "improvements" you propose - with a disastrous effect.

sparkzilla 10y ago
I'm not saying Wikipedia should make those improvements; I am saying there are better models for content production. Wikipedia can't make those improvements anyway, as its community is extremely conservative, and despite the power it has, it cannot make any changes to the software. The best you can hope for is window dressing.
davidgerard 10y ago
Newslines is the guy's startup, aspiring to compete with Wikipedia.
- sparkzilla 10y ago
  Actually we are much bigger than just competing with Wikipedia. We combine aspects of Wikipedia, daily news, Youtube, LinkedIn and (coming soon) Facebook.
  - chris_wot 10y ago
    Sounds like a lot of competing interests. Best of luck to you, but I think you'll find this hard to accomplish well.
    - sparkzilla 10y ago
      Thanks!

tmptmp 10y ago

From the site you linked >>There are the obvious display problems: Wikipedia pages look like a dull grey textbook. Almost every page is an over-long stream of text with hardly any video or even images. Pages about movies don’t even have trailers. This has big implications for kids brought up using visual media like Instagram and YouTube who are not interested in getting information about their favorite movies, musicians and celebrities from a textbook. Wikipedia's aim may not be to become popular by just being an eye-candy. One of their features, what you call there as "dull grey textbook" is what I like very much. It allows the reader to read the thing comfortably and it also helps the pages load faster. >>As the quote goes: Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. May be for some people this is true. But many people serious about studying a topic actually may find written material quite important and helpful. Wikipedia is about providing knowledge about topics, so if music is a topic it can provide knowledge about it and knowledge about something is not only that thing. There are many meta properties (outcomes of analysis, comparisons etc) that can be described meaningfully and concisely only in writing and are important. >>Over the past few months Newslines writers have added over 22,000 posts without a single edit war or controversy. If you stick to only some news (e.g. celebrity news) you won't get much controversy. But wikipedia is not for just news topics. It has provided space for many oppressed groups to post their views which are sure to generate controversy. (e.g. see these pages [1],[2],[3]) Your comparison of that site [4] with Wikipedia is therefore not has much foundation. I don't say that there is no need to improve Wikipedia but it requires better and deeper understanding and appreciation of Wikipedia, its readership and its goals. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostasy_in_Islam [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Marxism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Critique_of_Marxism [4] http://newslines.org/ http://newslines.org/

sparkzilla 10y ago
>Wikipedia's aim may not be to become popular by just being an eye-candy. One of their features, what you call there as "dull grey textbook" is what I like very much. It allows the reader to read the thing comfortably and it also helps the pages load faster. The format may suit you, but text, especially text in the long-form articles that are standard for Wikipedia is a poor format for the news-based articles that are the most popular on Wikipedia. >If you stick to only some news (e.g. celebrity news) you won't get much controversy. But wikipedia is not for just news topics. It has provided space for many oppressed groups to post their views which are sure to generate controversy. Wikipedia is a very expensive (time and energy) way to get information out to the public. Sending a video to Twitter and Facebook are easier and more shareable. >I don't say that there is no need to improve Wikipedia but it requires better and deeper understanding and appreciation of Wikipedia, its readership and its goals. Even with this, good luck getting any meaningful change from the Wikimedia Foundation.