3 ms·

Something sort of like it already exists; it's called a 'Featured Article' badge. But since there is an expectation that every article should eventually reach '

Something sort of like it already exists; it's called a 'Featured Article' badge. But since there is an expectation that every article should eventually reach 'featured' status (or at least it should be possible in principle), it doesn't have the result you'd expect. And why wouldn't people have this expectation? Why keep an article at all if it's just going to lie there and gather dust, unmaintained and exposed to vandalism?

tptacek 10y ago
Here's the list of FAs, to get some sense of what the bar is here. The overwhelming majority of WP articles --- including the important ones people care about --- aren't FA's; an FA is essentially a very high quality professional grade encyclopedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles
Sir_Substance 10y ago
>unmaintained and exposed to vandalism? Well written articles that contain no speculation shouldn't rot. >Bill cosby is a well respected television figure Would be badly written content that, left unmaintained, would now be inaccurate. >Bill cosby is a television figure who was held in high regard during the 70's-90's Is better written, because it hinges on verifiable information that will not change. It would become incomplete if no one added to it, but I would argue that it is better to have incomplete information than no information. Vandalism issues are a problem with the wikipedia software, not a problem with the concept of having lesser-trafficked pages. If this is an issue for low-traffic pages, then there should be an anti-vandalism queue where edits to articles that receive less than a certain amount of traffic should be put in a queue to be reviewed for vandalism (and just vandalism, not content accuracy etc). It might take a while for edits to bubble through, but that's basically ok if the page receives that little traffic. Eventual information is better than no information.
- pwdisswordfish 10y ago
  > Well written articles that contain no speculation shouldn't rot. And who is going to ensure that they are well-written and contain no speculation? > Vandalism issues are a problem with the wikipedia software, not a problem with the concept of having lesser-trafficked pages. If you mean to say that any software explicitly written for the purpose of letting random people publish content instantaneously with no supervision is bad software, I might agree. Otherwise, no. Vandalism is a social problem resulting from lack of article oversight. And I'm not just talking about inserting 'PENIS' into pages, because that is basically solved already with edit filters. I am talking about hoaxes, I am talking about presenting speculation as fact, I am talking about fabricated citations, I am also talking about well-meaning people who inadvertently turn carefully written technical articles into Potato Jesus. A while ago, I've looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Screen_of_Death&oldid=754328375 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Screen_of_De... which contains this lovely sentence: > Windows 98 and early builds of Windows Vista displayed the red screen from a boot loader error raised by ACPI.[19][20][21] Cited to three sources. Looks great, doesn't it? But if you know anything about boot loaders, about ACPI or just about Windows, you understand this sentence is complete nonsense. You don't even need to look at the citations which obviously don't say any such thing. This is no doubt a result of shoddy copyediting by someone who didn't understand the subject. What is your answer to that?
  - Sir_Substance 10y ago
    >What is your answer to that? That you should follow the links and see if the citation matches as part of routine anti-vandalism checks. >Cited to three sources. Looks great, doesn't it? But if you know anything about boot loaders, about ACPI or just about Windows, you understand this sentence is complete nonsense. All that says to me is that articles about computers should be reviewed by people who know about computers, which makes total common sense. An encyclopedia is defined as much by it's breadth as by it's depth. Cutting notable but lesser-trafficked chunks out of it to save on effort is a lazy-arse solution that lowers the usefulness of the wiki. I'm sure you could come up with a thousand reasons why it's too hard, but that's not how you make a good wiki. Hell, it's not how you make anything good. Ultimately, as the consumer of your product, I don't care about your troubles. Sympathetic customer fallacy applies. If wikipedia doesn't have the information I'm looking for, I won't use it. It really doesn't matter how lovely and maintainable the articles I'm not looking for are. If you wanna be proud of the work you do, you're gonna have to dig deep, maybe make some compromises, and figure it out.

tptacek 10y ago

Here's the list of FAs, to get some sense of what the bar is here. The overwhelming majority of WP articles --- including the important ones people care about --- aren't FA's; an FA is essentially a very high quality professional grade encyclopedia article. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Featured_articles

Sir_Substance 10y ago

>unmaintained and exposed to vandalism? Well written articles that contain no speculation shouldn't rot. >Bill cosby is a well respected television figure Would be badly written content that, left unmaintained, would now be inaccurate. >Bill cosby is a television figure who was held in high regard during the 70's-90's Is better written, because it hinges on verifiable information that will not change. It would become incomplete if no one added to it, but I would argue that it is better to have incomplete information than no information. Vandalism issues are a problem with the wikipedia software, not a problem with the concept of having lesser-trafficked pages. If this is an issue for low-traffic pages, then there should be an anti-vandalism queue where edits to articles that receive less than a certain amount of traffic should be put in a queue to be reviewed for vandalism (and just vandalism, not content accuracy etc). It might take a while for edits to bubble through, but that's basically ok if the page receives that little traffic. Eventual information is better than no information.

pwdisswordfish 10y ago
> Well written articles that contain no speculation shouldn't rot. And who is going to ensure that they are well-written and contain no speculation? > Vandalism issues are a problem with the wikipedia software, not a problem with the concept of having lesser-trafficked pages. If you mean to say that any software explicitly written for the purpose of letting random people publish content instantaneously with no supervision is bad software, I might agree. Otherwise, no. Vandalism is a social problem resulting from lack of article oversight. And I'm not just talking about inserting 'PENIS' into pages, because that is basically solved already with edit filters. I am talking about hoaxes, I am talking about presenting speculation as fact, I am talking about fabricated citations, I am also talking about well-meaning people who inadvertently turn carefully written technical articles into Potato Jesus. A while ago, I've looked at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Screen_of_Death&oldid=754328375 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Blue_Screen_of_De... which contains this lovely sentence: > Windows 98 and early builds of Windows Vista displayed the red screen from a boot loader error raised by ACPI.[19][20][21] Cited to three sources. Looks great, doesn't it? But if you know anything about boot loaders, about ACPI or just about Windows, you understand this sentence is complete nonsense. You don't even need to look at the citations which obviously don't say any such thing. This is no doubt a result of shoddy copyediting by someone who didn't understand the subject. What is your answer to that?
- Sir_Substance 10y ago
  >What is your answer to that? That you should follow the links and see if the citation matches as part of routine anti-vandalism checks. >Cited to three sources. Looks great, doesn't it? But if you know anything about boot loaders, about ACPI or just about Windows, you understand this sentence is complete nonsense. All that says to me is that articles about computers should be reviewed by people who know about computers, which makes total common sense. An encyclopedia is defined as much by it's breadth as by it's depth. Cutting notable but lesser-trafficked chunks out of it to save on effort is a lazy-arse solution that lowers the usefulness of the wiki. I'm sure you could come up with a thousand reasons why it's too hard, but that's not how you make a good wiki. Hell, it's not how you make anything good. Ultimately, as the consumer of your product, I don't care about your troubles. Sympathetic customer fallacy applies. If wikipedia doesn't have the information I'm looking for, I won't use it. It really doesn't matter how lovely and maintainable the articles I'm not looking for are. If you wanna be proud of the work you do, you're gonna have to dig deep, maybe make some compromises, and figure it out.