5 ms·

Lists like these on Wikipedia drive me crazy. As others have pointed out, there are still footmen, peddlers, Mudlarks (the recently published book about it is

Lists like these on Wikipedia drive me crazy. As others have pointed out, there are still footmen, peddlers, Mudlarks (the recently published book about it is great by the way), nursemaids, troubadors and even arguably privateers working away in the World today. Their numbers may be fewer, their fortunes and status somewhat smaller, but they haven't disappered. Some have also pointed out that in many cases the role exists, it's just the name and nature of the job that has changed slightly over time. So then we come to the definition of "obsolete", and it's this which prevents me from editing the list and removing these: I would argue "no longer used" does not apply, and somebody else would argue they are "out of date", which arguably is true. The community at Wikipedia is not a friendly one to engage with in such debates, IME - it's defensive, cliquey and closed. As a newcomer, there is a good chance I'd end up losing the argument. So, I don't edit Wikipedia. Ever. What they have produced is in the whole, remarkable. However, lists like this make me sad as they remind me of the closed shop nature of being able to contribute.

DanBC 7y ago
A core feature of wikipedia is "no original research". It doesn't matter whether you think these occupations are obsolete or not. It only matters if someone else thought it, and wrote it down, and then got it published in a reliable source. At that point a wikipedia editor can add the occupation to the list. It's a bizarre system because there are large cultural around fact-checking in different media in different countries, so there's a load of opinion that's now in Wikipedia because it got published somewhere else.
- ghaff 7y ago
  One of the ironies of Wikipedia is that concepts like "notability" and "no original research" tend to be adjudicated, in no small part when they are, by publication in non-digital form. (Which, I assume, no one actually physically checks much of the time.)
  - colejohnson66 7y ago
    This has always made me wonder: could one make up fake quotes and “cite” them out of an old book?
    - ghaff 7y ago
      Sure. And I assume that, at least so long as the claim/quote wasn't too outrageous, you'd probably get away with it.
    - Geimfari 7y ago
      Absolutely. You could even add fake citations to online newspapers – the odds of someone checking are very low, and I continually stumble upon either blatant fabrications or misunderstandings that have stood there "sourced" for years on high-traffic articles.
      - beckingz 7y ago
        Just create a citation loop and create facts from nowhere!
    - sobani 7y ago
      Even better: I remember there being a Wikipedia edit on some German person's name, that was copied by a newspaper and then that name in the newspaper was cited as a justification to not fix the name back. It might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg, but I can't find any references about Wikipedia not correcting the name.
      - shoeffner 7y ago
        Yes, it was him, someone added an additional "Wilhelm" [0] and it was copied by many newspapers [1]. The Bild wrote (translation mine): "Do we have to remember this name?" [2], and some anonymous guest author on the blog claims to be responsible [2]. In 2016 the name was edited in for about 2 minutes [3], referencing a source from 2012. However, I do not recall it being a big issue to remove that additional name again – but it was more than 10 years ago. It did, however, draw some criticism to German journalism. [0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Freiherr_von_und_zu_Guttenberg&diff=56419545&oldid=56418683 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Frei... [1]: https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ lists a few of those newspapers [2]: https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-wilhelm-machte/ https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-... [3]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg&oldid=155853227 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_G...
fergie 7y ago
"As a newcomer, there is a good chance I'd end up losing the argument." Have you tried? You might find it slightly more welcoming that you think.
- gpvos 7y ago
  IME = in my experience. So, yes.
- londons_explore 7y ago
  I think this is a misconception. Wikipedia has a big set of rules and standards, and it turns out most first time contributors spend a lot of time making a contribution, only for it to be reverted because it violates the rules. I think they need something like "Looks like you're new to editing! Make your first edit together with someone who has experience.". They should then open some kind of google-docs collaborative editor.
  - carlinmack 7y ago
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold
martindbp 7y ago
Where would you draw the limit? I'm sure you can find at least one person having almost any occupation, including knocker-up. The world is a big place. I think it would be more in the right spirit to look at the overall decrease. If the decrease is, for example, 99% I would consider it obsolete.
SilasX 7y ago
Also, scullery maid. As best I can tell from the article, it just means “low ranked maid”. Some of the traditional job functions they list don’t exist anymore, but maids do.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Sort of. However, the term is pretty much tied to the staff in "great houses" where the scullery maid was usually an assistant to the kitchen maid. I imagine that somewhat similar functions (though not at the detailed level) still exist in some places but I doubt anyone would use that particular term.
ghaff 7y ago
Essentially any vague-ish list on Wikipedia is pretty much a train wreck. Another one is something like "notable people" associated with some city or other. It can make sense for a small town that maybe has had only one of two of any reasonable note. But it's silly when applied to any sizable city. Yet it's exactly the sort of thing that encourages the sort of random drive-by additions that are one of the banes of Wikipedia generally.
- boatswain 7y ago
  With lists notable people from cities it's gets vague whether to include people who were born but not raised there, raise but not born there, people who moved there as adults, etc.
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Franci...
kleer001 7y ago
Obsolete does not mean extinct. One of its definitions is "Vestigial or rudimentary". It's still there, but it doesn't do much. This is, AFAIK, the definition intended.
antientropic 7y ago
> closed shop nature of being able to contribute This seems like a really bizarre characterization of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has had millions of contributors over its lifetime and something like 130K active editors. Anybody can hit the "Edit" button. I cannot think of any collaborative project that has more participants. If that's "closed shop" to you, what would be an example of an open project? BTW, if you're of the deletionist inclination, you could certainly try to nuke this article on the basis of lack of references or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Listcruft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Listcruft ("In general, a "List of X" stand-alone list article should only be created if X itself is a legitimate encyclopedic topic that already has its own article") and have a good chance of succeeding.
sixtypoundhound 7y ago
You had me at privateer... where do I apply?

DanBC 7y ago

A core feature of wikipedia is "no original research". It doesn't matter whether you think these occupations are obsolete or not. It only matters if someone else thought it, and wrote it down, and then got it published in a reliable source. At that point a wikipedia editor can add the occupation to the list. It's a bizarre system because there are large cultural around fact-checking in different media in different countries, so there's a load of opinion that's now in Wikipedia because it got published somewhere else.

ghaff 7y ago
One of the ironies of Wikipedia is that concepts like "notability" and "no original research" tend to be adjudicated, in no small part when they are, by publication in non-digital form. (Which, I assume, no one actually physically checks much of the time.)
- colejohnson66 7y ago
  This has always made me wonder: could one make up fake quotes and “cite” them out of an old book?
  - ghaff 7y ago
    Sure. And I assume that, at least so long as the claim/quote wasn't too outrageous, you'd probably get away with it.
  - Geimfari 7y ago
    Absolutely. You could even add fake citations to online newspapers – the odds of someone checking are very low, and I continually stumble upon either blatant fabrications or misunderstandings that have stood there "sourced" for years on high-traffic articles.
    - beckingz 7y ago
      Just create a citation loop and create facts from nowhere!
  - sobani 7y ago
    Even better: I remember there being a Wikipedia edit on some German person's name, that was copied by a newspaper and then that name in the newspaper was cited as a justification to not fix the name back. It might be https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg, but I can't find any references about Wikipedia not correcting the name.
    - shoeffner 7y ago
      Yes, it was him, someone added an additional "Wilhelm" [0] and it was copied by many newspapers [1]. The Bild wrote (translation mine): "Do we have to remember this name?" [2], and some anonymous guest author on the blog claims to be responsible [2]. In 2016 the name was edited in for about 2 minutes [3], referencing a source from 2012. However, I do not recall it being a big issue to remove that additional name again – but it was more than 10 years ago. It did, however, draw some criticism to German journalism. [0]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Freiherr_von_und_zu_Guttenberg&diff=56419545&oldid=56418683 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_Frei... [1]: https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ https://bildblog.de/5731/wilhelm-ii/ lists a few of those newspapers [2]: https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-wilhelm-machte/ https://bildblog.de/5704/wie-ich-freiherr-von-guttenberg-zu-... [3]: https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_Guttenberg&oldid=155853227 https://de.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Karl-Theodor_zu_G...

fergie 7y ago

"As a newcomer, there is a good chance I'd end up losing the argument." Have you tried? You might find it slightly more welcoming that you think.

gpvos 7y ago
IME = in my experience. So, yes.
londons_explore 7y ago
I think this is a misconception. Wikipedia has a big set of rules and standards, and it turns out most first time contributors spend a lot of time making a contribution, only for it to be reverted because it violates the rules. I think they need something like "Looks like you're new to editing! Make your first edit together with someone who has experience.". They should then open some kind of google-docs collaborative editor.
- carlinmack 7y ago
  https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Be_bold

martindbp 7y ago

Where would you draw the limit? I'm sure you can find at least one person having almost any occupation, including knocker-up. The world is a big place. I think it would be more in the right spirit to look at the overall decrease. If the decrease is, for example, 99% I would consider it obsolete.

SilasX 7y ago

Also, scullery maid. As best I can tell from the article, it just means “low ranked maid”. Some of the traditional job functions they list don’t exist anymore, but maids do.

ghaff 7y ago
Sort of. However, the term is pretty much tied to the staff in "great houses" where the scullery maid was usually an assistant to the kitchen maid. I imagine that somewhat similar functions (though not at the detailed level) still exist in some places but I doubt anyone would use that particular term.

ghaff 7y ago

Essentially any vague-ish list on Wikipedia is pretty much a train wreck. Another one is something like "notable people" associated with some city or other. It can make sense for a small town that maybe has had only one of two of any reasonable note. But it's silly when applied to any sizable city. Yet it's exactly the sort of thing that encourages the sort of random drive-by additions that are one of the banes of Wikipedia generally.

boatswain 7y ago
With lists notable people from cities it's gets vague whether to include people who were born but not raised there, raise but not born there, people who moved there as adults, etc.
- ghaff 7y ago
  Case in point: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Francisco https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_people_from_San_Franci...

kleer001 7y ago

Obsolete does not mean extinct. One of its definitions is "Vestigial or rudimentary". It's still there, but it doesn't do much. This is, AFAIK, the definition intended.

antientropic 7y ago

> closed shop nature of being able to contribute This seems like a really bizarre characterization of Wikipedia. Wikipedia has had millions of contributors over its lifetime and something like 130K active editors. Anybody can hit the "Edit" button. I cannot think of any collaborative project that has more participants. If that's "closed shop" to you, what would be an example of an open project? BTW, if you're of the deletionist inclination, you could certainly try to nuke this article on the basis of lack of references or https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Listcruft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Listcruft ("In general, a "List of X" stand-alone list article should only be created if X itself is a legitimate encyclopedic topic that already has its own article") and have a good chance of succeeding.

sixtypoundhound 7y ago

You had me at privateer... where do I apply?