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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_substitute_for_discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_subs... And there are

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_substitute_for_discussion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Polling_is_not_a_subs... And there are many structured discussions on Wikipedia that follow set patterns and rules. Take deletion: at Articles for Deletion (the area of the site where deletion is debated), there are a set of common patterns and anti-patterns of arguments that you should use and avoid using, and there is a time period where you can submit comments and something vaguely like quorate required before a decision can be made. At the end of a week, the discussion is wrapped up: it's obvious, it gets kept or deleted, and if not, the admin has to sum up the arguments and accept them in a sort of quasi-judicial manner. It's rather more civilized than YouTube or newspaper comments pages...

stdbrouw 15y ago
Good points, cheers. It's messy (at the very least just visually) but there are some standards. I'll stick to my assertion, though, that more people need to think about this stuff, because the organically grown processes don't always cut it — otherwise, you wouldn't have frustrated rants like those of Zed Shaw (http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1297662169.html http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1297662169.html) and Jason Scott (http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808).
- tommorris 15y ago
  And there are people thinking about this and trying to work on software solutions for it. The Wikimedia Foundation are trying to create a variety of tools for new page patrollers (I used to do it) to aid them in better handling the flow of new articles coming in (it's called the "zoom interface"). Another thing that is being tested is making the automatic templates used to notify people that articles are up for deletion or whatever a lot more friendly. For the last month or so, the Foundation and the community have been working together to A-B test better warning templates. As for discussion threads, there's LiquidThreads, which has been in development for a while but would provide a threaded discussion system sort of like what Reddit and HN have but for Wikimedia talk pages, but still keeping the flexibility of being able to refactor discussions and move stuff about without an admin. LiquidThreads is in use on English Wikinews and on mediawiki.org, but English Wikipedia doesn't have it because it isn't quite mature enough yet (or something, I haven't kept track). Finally, there's the big one: the visual editor. That's in development at the moment, hopefully with testing starting by the end of the year. This is going to be an opt-out WYSIWYG-style editor. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/software_design http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/software_design for a rough idea how it is being built. There is lots of consensus that things do need to change and Wikipedia does need to have more technical solutions to the problems that are showing with some of the decade-old organically grown social processes.

stdbrouw 15y ago

Good points, cheers. It's messy (at the very least just visually) but there are some standards. I'll stick to my assertion, though, that more people need to think about this stuff, because the organically grown processes don't always cut it — otherwise, you wouldn't have frustrated rants like those of Zed Shaw (http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1297662169.html http://sheddingbikes.com/posts/1297662169.html) and Jason Scott (http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808 http://ascii.textfiles.com/archives/808).

tommorris 15y ago
And there are people thinking about this and trying to work on software solutions for it. The Wikimedia Foundation are trying to create a variety of tools for new page patrollers (I used to do it) to aid them in better handling the flow of new articles coming in (it's called the "zoom interface"). Another thing that is being tested is making the automatic templates used to notify people that articles are up for deletion or whatever a lot more friendly. For the last month or so, the Foundation and the community have been working together to A-B test better warning templates. As for discussion threads, there's LiquidThreads, which has been in development for a while but would provide a threaded discussion system sort of like what Reddit and HN have but for Wikimedia talk pages, but still keeping the flexibility of being able to refactor discussions and move stuff about without an admin. LiquidThreads is in use on English Wikinews and on mediawiki.org, but English Wikipedia doesn't have it because it isn't quite mature enough yet (or something, I haven't kept track). Finally, there's the big one: the visual editor. That's in development at the moment, hopefully with testing starting by the end of the year. This is going to be an opt-out WYSIWYG-style editor. See http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/software_design http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Visual_editor/software_design for a rough idea how it is being built. There is lots of consensus that things do need to change and Wikipedia does need to have more technical solutions to the problems that are showing with some of the decade-old organically grown social processes.