5 ms·

Most of the debate on wikipedia is regarding which rules to apply soasto prevent people from submitting edits.

by basch 10y ago

crooked-v 10y ago
For my part, I stopped contributing long ago because every single edit attempt I made, including simple stuff like fixing punctuation, would inevitably get reverted by a bot or an overprotective editor within the next day or two.
- cooper12 10y ago
  If every single edit you made was reverted, maybe they weren't really constructive edits? Just food for thought. > If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole. - Raylan Givens, Justified On a more serious note, I always hear people complaining about getting reverted. What they don't realize is that, often, their edits really are just bad. Here's some of the stuff I have to revert daily: * Test edits/gibberish * Vandalism * Original research [0] * Changing stuff to match their variety of English [1] * Making the grammar worse, or going against the Manual of Style [2] * Improper tone [3] * No edit summary giving a rationale for the edit A lot of the time, the changes people make are just arbitrary or don't improve the article. If you ever feel you were improperly reverted though, you can always bring it up on the talk page. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Nati... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_artic...
  - mason240 10y ago
    Considering this very common experience had by people trying to contribute, I think your saying applies more to the "full time" entrenched editors, who are acting as wall of assholes blocking a wider group of contributors. Also, that saying has been around alot longer than Justified.
    - cooper12 10y ago
      I mean I just gave you the reasoning of entrenched editors, they're just not often good edits. These complaints come from people who think that Wikipedia is obliged to take any of their edits just because they took the time to hit the submit button. Wikipedia has policies and standards to uphold and people would complain if we went the other way and accepted all garbage people felt necessary to dump on the site. Also, the people who bring up these accusations never list the articles they were reverted on. Show me some of these edits improperly reverted and I'll personally help reinstate them or explain what was wrong with them.
  - deleted 10y ago
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  - deleted 10y ago
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- FireBeyond 10y ago
  When the latest Tesla press release came out about performance, I surrendered after about an hour or two of edit warring about how it wasn't actually a verified / independent track time, but rather a PR piece about predicted performance. Pointing out the guidelines on the page themselves didn't matter. Reverting with comments in the revert itself didn't matter. Whether new people or established editor, everyone was falling over themselves to get the edit in. I decided it was futile when they started deciding the solution was instead to rewrite the "guidelines" for what measurements were acceptable, basically "Screw you, we're putting the Tesla in. If it doesn't count based on the rules, we're changing the rules." So now it's in three categories, "independent/ verified", "manufacturer tested", and "manufacturer claimed" (the latter of which only had the new Tesla).
  - greglindahl 10y ago
    Deleting content is one of Wikipedia's biggest issues right now. I'm not surprised that the stable solution was to include the new content, and add a new way of describing it. Futile? No: inclusive. In a month or two you'll have the verified track time to add.
    - FireBeyond 10y ago
      Great. And in a month or two, then it should be added. But as a hint, in an area which isn't exactly new - manufacturers have been releasing new cars for a century, some faster than others, have been releasing press releases ever since, too, especially for supercars/ etc., on a list that has been updated for years (and this is one of my first edits on the topic, so I'm hardly claiming ownership)... the fact that you have to add another column that completely defies the "real world" measurements of every other vehicle there in order to get their fandom vehicle in should be indicative that it was a stretch. Here's an example: "List of fastest 100m races" lists the top 20 verified 100m times in history. Along comes an athlete's team and they release a press release saying "Based on our simulations, we predict he will run 9.45s in this race in a few months time" and, rather than do nothing with it, editors fall over each other to add a new column to the list, so it now has "verified times", "independent times", and "team projected times" and based on that states that Athlete is now the third fastest 100m runner in the world. Instead of, as you say, waiting for that event to verify (or prove false) that claim. But yet, to witness sibling posts, my perspective is "wrong".
- arjie 10y ago
  I've edited pages, created pages, and added sources, and each time someone has taken the small work I do and turned it into something with quality. I'm very impressed by Wikipedia.
- DanBC 10y ago
  I agree. Recently WP has recognised that's a serious problem, and was a risk to the project. Some stuff like Twinkle and Rollback got a lot more oversight. Various "vandal patrol" groups got shut down. New Page Patrol got revamped. Here's on discussion about new page patrol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/RfC_for_patroller_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/RfC... I've found far fewer of my gnome edits get reverted now than what used to happen.
Animats 10y ago
Editing Wikipedia is not like posting on a blog or a forum. It's more like contributing to a project on Github. Many people do not get this. Wikipedia has converged on a referenced-to-death style, like a PhD thesis. This is part of what keeps it from becoming too biased. People who have never had to write to tightly referenced standards get very frustrated editing Wikipedia. Those who have don't find it difficult.
- basch 10y ago
  I don't think it's reasonable to expect every edit to be polished. If someone makes a rough contribution with promise, it should stay in the article in its broken form, so other passerbyers can see it and help improve it. Something ugly but of value should stay instead of being relegated to talk pages 99% of viewers never bother to check. I lean towards inclusion because visible mistakes are more likely to be fixed by random surfers. There is one faction of people that treat pages like a final draft, and others who prefer it as working space (with extremely high visibility.) Github isnt a fair comparison, because it has a much better workflow for proposing changes.
  - Animats 10y ago
    If an edit to Wikipedia has new, cited information, but the citation is in the wrong format, someone will probably fix it. If it's uncited writing, and not well written, it's probably going to be reverted. There are sandbox pages, user pages, and talk pages for working drafts. But the main space pages are seen by millions of people, and are not an appropriate place to write drafts. Realistically, if you can't write English without grammatical errors, trying to edit Wikipedia will be a frustrating experience.
    - basch 10y ago
      >But the main space pages are seen by millions of people, and are not an appropriate place to write drafts. The visibility is entirely why it should be where contributions are made and not in behind the scenes obscure spots. It's ok for pages to be flawed. If you fix a grammatical error instead of reverting a contribution, you might teach the person who made it something. If it's uncited, you should cite it, tag it, or leave it, you shouldnt be reverting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Try_to_fix_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Try_t... >Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them IF YOU CAN'T. Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they SHOULD BE RETAINED if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability and No original research. I dont have some radical position here. It's written right into editing policy. Removal should be saved for when contributions cant be fixed, not because you think they are ugly blemishes, and dont want to take the time to improve them. An "incomplete" contribution should stay IN the article, waiting for someone else to come along and mend it. Preference for an article to look "finished" should take a back seat. Facts and Ideas first, spit polish next. Always prioritize the former.

Most of the debate on wikipedia is regarding which rules to apply soasto prevent people from submitting edits.

by basch 10y ago

Most of the debate on wikipedia is regarding which rules to apply soasto prevent people from submitting edits.

For my part, I stopped contributing long ago because every single edit attempt I made, including simple stuff like fixing punctuation, would inevitably get reverted by a bot or an overprotective editor within the next day or two.

cooper12 10y ago
If every single edit you made was reverted, maybe they weren't really constructive edits? Just food for thought. > If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole. - Raylan Givens, Justified On a more serious note, I always hear people complaining about getting reverted. What they don't realize is that, often, their edits really are just bad. Here's some of the stuff I have to revert daily: * Test edits/gibberish * Vandalism * Original research [0] * Changing stuff to match their variety of English [1] * Making the grammar worse, or going against the Manual of Style [2] * Improper tone [3] * No edit summary giving a rationale for the edit A lot of the time, the changes people make are just arbitrary or don't improve the article. If you ever feel you were improperly reverted though, you can always bring it up on the talk page. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:No_original_research [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#National_varieties_of_English https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style#Nati... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Manual_of_Style [3]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_articles#Tone https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Writing_better_artic...
- mason240 10y ago
  Considering this very common experience had by people trying to contribute, I think your saying applies more to the "full time" entrenched editors, who are acting as wall of assholes blocking a wider group of contributors. Also, that saying has been around alot longer than Justified.
  - cooper12 10y ago
    I mean I just gave you the reasoning of entrenched editors, they're just not often good edits. These complaints come from people who think that Wikipedia is obliged to take any of their edits just because they took the time to hit the submit button. Wikipedia has policies and standards to uphold and people would complain if we went the other way and accepted all garbage people felt necessary to dump on the site. Also, the people who bring up these accusations never list the articles they were reverted on. Show me some of these edits improperly reverted and I'll personally help reinstate them or explain what was wrong with them.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
FireBeyond 10y ago
When the latest Tesla press release came out about performance, I surrendered after about an hour or two of edit warring about how it wasn't actually a verified / independent track time, but rather a PR piece about predicted performance. Pointing out the guidelines on the page themselves didn't matter. Reverting with comments in the revert itself didn't matter. Whether new people or established editor, everyone was falling over themselves to get the edit in. I decided it was futile when they started deciding the solution was instead to rewrite the "guidelines" for what measurements were acceptable, basically "Screw you, we're putting the Tesla in. If it doesn't count based on the rules, we're changing the rules." So now it's in three categories, "independent/ verified", "manufacturer tested", and "manufacturer claimed" (the latter of which only had the new Tesla).
- greglindahl 10y ago
  Deleting content is one of Wikipedia's biggest issues right now. I'm not surprised that the stable solution was to include the new content, and add a new way of describing it. Futile? No: inclusive. In a month or two you'll have the verified track time to add.
  - FireBeyond 10y ago
    Great. And in a month or two, then it should be added. But as a hint, in an area which isn't exactly new - manufacturers have been releasing new cars for a century, some faster than others, have been releasing press releases ever since, too, especially for supercars/ etc., on a list that has been updated for years (and this is one of my first edits on the topic, so I'm hardly claiming ownership)... the fact that you have to add another column that completely defies the "real world" measurements of every other vehicle there in order to get their fandom vehicle in should be indicative that it was a stretch. Here's an example: "List of fastest 100m races" lists the top 20 verified 100m times in history. Along comes an athlete's team and they release a press release saying "Based on our simulations, we predict he will run 9.45s in this race in a few months time" and, rather than do nothing with it, editors fall over each other to add a new column to the list, so it now has "verified times", "independent times", and "team projected times" and based on that states that Athlete is now the third fastest 100m runner in the world. Instead of, as you say, waiting for that event to verify (or prove false) that claim. But yet, to witness sibling posts, my perspective is "wrong".
arjie 10y ago
I've edited pages, created pages, and added sources, and each time someone has taken the small work I do and turned it into something with quality. I'm very impressed by Wikipedia.
DanBC 10y ago
I agree. Recently WP has recognised that's a serious problem, and was a risk to the project. Some stuff like Twinkle and Rollback got a lot more oversight. Various "vandal patrol" groups got shut down. New Page Patrol got revamped. Here's on discussion about new page patrol: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/RfC_for_patroller_right https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:New_pages_patrol/RfC... I've found far fewer of my gnome edits get reverted now than what used to happen.

Animats 10y ago

Editing Wikipedia is not like posting on a blog or a forum. It's more like contributing to a project on Github. Many people do not get this. Wikipedia has converged on a referenced-to-death style, like a PhD thesis. This is part of what keeps it from becoming too biased. People who have never had to write to tightly referenced standards get very frustrated editing Wikipedia. Those who have don't find it difficult.

basch 10y ago
I don't think it's reasonable to expect every edit to be polished. If someone makes a rough contribution with promise, it should stay in the article in its broken form, so other passerbyers can see it and help improve it. Something ugly but of value should stay instead of being relegated to talk pages 99% of viewers never bother to check. I lean towards inclusion because visible mistakes are more likely to be fixed by random surfers. There is one faction of people that treat pages like a final draft, and others who prefer it as working space (with extremely high visibility.) Github isnt a fair comparison, because it has a much better workflow for proposing changes.
- Animats 10y ago
  If an edit to Wikipedia has new, cited information, but the citation is in the wrong format, someone will probably fix it. If it's uncited writing, and not well written, it's probably going to be reverted. There are sandbox pages, user pages, and talk pages for working drafts. But the main space pages are seen by millions of people, and are not an appropriate place to write drafts. Realistically, if you can't write English without grammatical errors, trying to edit Wikipedia will be a frustrating experience.
  - basch 10y ago
    >But the main space pages are seen by millions of people, and are not an appropriate place to write drafts. The visibility is entirely why it should be where contributions are made and not in behind the scenes obscure spots. It's ok for pages to be flawed. If you fix a grammatical error instead of reverting a contribution, you might teach the person who made it something. If it's uncited, you should cite it, tag it, or leave it, you shouldnt be reverting it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Try_to_fix_problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Editing_policy#Try_t... >Fix problems if you can, flag or remove them IF YOU CAN'T. Likewise, as long as any of the facts or ideas added to an article would belong in the "finished" article, they SHOULD BE RETAINED if they meet the three article content retention policies: Neutral point of view (which does not mean no point of view), Verifiability and No original research. I dont have some radical position here. It's written right into editing policy. Removal should be saved for when contributions cant be fixed, not because you think they are ugly blemishes, and dont want to take the time to improve them. An "incomplete" contribution should stay IN the article, waiting for someone else to come along and mend it. Preference for an article to look "finished" should take a back seat. Facts and Ideas first, spit polish next. Always prioritize the former.