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Using Wikipedia in the classroom: a cautionary tale

105 points by jcurbo 12y ago

brudgers 12y ago
It didn't take much imagination to realize that this problem with Wikipedia is a vast improvement over traditional encyclopedias. Britannica would not have had an article, a public record of edits, or a way for a student to even participate in its improvement except perhaps via a few internships with limited responsibility well below authorship or editorial privilege. It shows up on my computer, but it is still a human institution.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  Somebody wasted their time and effort, had their feelings hurt, and was discouraged in their interests. That's not an improvement over traditional encyclopedias.
  - fixermark 12y ago
    Having your feelings hurt and appreciating (and overcoming) the sense of wasted time and effort is actually valuable experience for someone who is focused on academia (which one could infer, as the student in question was involved in an Honors Conversion). A Wikipedia edit reversal is frustrating, but not as frustrating as a thesis pursuit or academic journal publication rejection. The takeaway I get from this story is actually that Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age.
    - niels_olson 12y ago
      > Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age. This should be standard Welcoming Committee text.
  - brudgers 12y ago
    In certain of the characteristics mentioned above the negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthro-poids. The characteristics are length of arm, prognathism, a heavy massive cranium with large zygomatic arches, flat nose depressed at base, &c. But in one important respect, the character of the hair, the white man stands in closer relation to the higher apes than does the Negro. Mentally the negro is inferior to the white. The remark of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: " the negro children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. We must necessarily suppose that the development of the negro and white proceeds on different lines. While with the latter the volume of the brain grows with the expansion of the brainpan, in the former the growth of the brain is on the contrary arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone. 3 This explanation is reasonable and even probable as a contributing cause; but evidence is lacking on the subject and the arrest or even deterioration in mental develop- ment is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thoughts. At the same time his environment has not been su:h as would tend to produce in him the restless energy which has led to the progress of the white race; and the easy conditions of tropical life and the fertility of the soil have reduced the struggle for existence to a minimum. But though the mental inferiority of the negro to [the white or yellow races is a fact, it has often been exaggerated; the negro is largely the creature of his environment, and it is not fair to judge of his mental capacity by tests taken directly from the environment of the white man, as for instance tests in mental arithmetic; skill in reckoning is necessary to the white race, and it has cultivated this faculty; but it is not necessary to the negro. On the other hand negroes far surpass white men in acuteness of vision, hearing, sense of direction and topography. A native who has once visited a particular locality will rarely fail to recognize it again. For the rest, the mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test. Given suitable training, the negro is capable of becoming a craftsman of considerable skill, particularly in metal work, carpentry and carving. The bronze castings by the cire perdue process, and the cups and horns of ivory elaborately carved, which were produced by the natives of Guinea after their intercourse with the Portuguese of the i6th century, bear ample witness to this. But the rapid decline and practical evanescence of both industries, when that intercourse was interrupted, shows that the native craftsman was raised for the moment >above his normal level by direct foreign inspiration, and was unable to sustain the high quality of his work when that inspiration failed. -- Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Edition Hurt feelings are hardly the worst byproduct of Encyclopedia policies in regard to editorials and authorship. https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich/encyclopaediabri19chisrich_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich/encycl...
x1798DE 12y ago
This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days - someone tries to make changes to a Wikipedia article, the changes are reverted and they make a blog post or run to the media about how unfair Wikipedia is. There are about 3 paragraphs on the talk page on this. The student and the experienced editor went back and forth maybe 3 times. The fact that a high school student didn't make high quality edits to Wikipedia should not be super shocking, and the reversions were all justified by the reverter. Maybe there's a culture shock, but it's part of the Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle that is integral to Wikipedia quality control. You make changes without asking permission, if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus. Frankly, this seems like a perfect teaching tool - you've got someone right there willing to do the teaching for you, because they're engaging your student in a debate about the content of the material. Maybe the student doesn't get published along the way, but she can still get a grade, and she can learn the essential skill that is justifying her positions (or the equally important skill of accepting when you are wrong).
- Hermel 12y ago
  > This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days Which could be an indication that there is also a problem with wikipedia. In particular, I think when someone takes a genuine effort to improve an article and that effort is reverted, there should be a clear indication of the reasons. In this case, whenever malte pointed to specific issues with the article, the student corrected them immediately. > if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus. I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful.
  - x1798DE 12y ago
    If anything the problem with Wikipedia causing this is a PR problem, not a problem with the culture of Wikipedia. The articles I see are usually of the form, "I don't edit Wikipedia, I thought it would be this way, but it's another way and that was unpleasant!" You're always going to get that sort of situation - I could just as easily run to the media and say, "I tried posting a comment on HackerNews and it just dropped to the bottom of the comment stack and turned super light grey so that you could barely see it!" If these were well-formed arguments about the actual culture of Wikipedia and not just newbie-shock, it'd be a lot more understandable. >I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful. I've said elsewhere here I think the whole situation would have been much more fruitful if the teacher had been or had engaged with an experienced Wikipedia editor to put these sorts of comments in the right context. Personally, I think the WP:SYNTH document is concise and clear enough that it isn't unreasonable to point to it after the reversion, but that's beside the point. The student has the option of continuing to make changes to their text to try and fix the problems the experienced editor pointed out, or if they think the changes are appropriate, go through another dispute resolution mechanism if the experienced editor is unwilling to budge. There are many such mechanisms, none of which were tried in this situation, because inexperienced editors don't know how to take advantage of them.
VLM 12y ago
Well, look on the bright side, she only got bullied and reverted, whereas her hard work could have gotten the attention of the deletionists, and the entire page could have been wiped out. Why insult just one student by reverting, when you can insult an entire discipline by deleting?
GabrielF00 12y ago
I was a Wikipedia campus ambassador for two courses - one at Boston College the other at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The students were assigned to contribute to articles and my role was to help them navigate Wikipedia. I thought both courses went well - the BC class in particular had a professor who was very involved in selecting articles, having the students write drafts and reflect on their work. The students wrote a lot of good content and I had four or five of their articles featured on the Wikipedia home page's Did You Know section for new articles (More would have been featured but Wikipedia's rules for what qualifies are pretty arbitrary). There were three cases out of fifteen that were problematic - in two cases someone expanded the article while the students were working on their drafts, pre-empting their work, in the third case after the class had concluded some editors felt that the student's work misrepresented the topic and rewrote it. Overall the students wrote well-sourced, well-written content and I think they had a good experience.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  Looking at this particular case, I'd say the experience would have been much better if the teacher had been an experienced Wikipedia editor or had contacted one of the projects that deals with this sort of thing ahead of time to put them in touch with a mentor editor. The article mentions that seniority is important (I've never found that to be the case), but what's actually important is understanding the kind of content that Wikipedia is looking for. In this case, the reversions were mostly because of "original research" violations, where the student synthesized new opinions out of the sources. This is something you'd do if you were writing a high school report on a topic, but on Wikipedia you're really only allowed to summarize what the sources say. Having someone who understands that around would have helped both student and teacher understand why the material is being removed, and how it could be improved if they still wanted to contribute to the article.
  - niels_olson 12y ago
    You have a lot of thoughts about how this could have been done better. Have you passed any of these along to Professor Duffy?
fixermark 12y ago
If I understand correctly, the "Talk" page on Wikipedia also has an archived edit history. I'm looking at the most recent version [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader] and the revisions [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super-spreader&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super-spreade...], and I'm having a hard time seeing the bullying---it looks like an individual defending an edit, another individual defending the revert with explanation of what is missing, and the first individual adding additional data to clarify that the original edit isn't "original research." Can someone help highlight the bullying for me? Is there a subsection of the Talk history that I'm missing / can Talk history be deleted?
- Hermel 12y ago
  I think the problem are the reverts without specific explanations. As far as I see, the student corrected all the specific errors that were pointed out. Reverting an article of someone who put a lot of effort into creating it without giving a clear and specific explanation is frustrating.
  - fixermark 12y ago
    Ah, good point. I didn't correlate the times on the edit/reverts on the main page with the Talk page updates.
- ForHackernews 12y ago
  > Thing is, on Wikipedia it isn't really up to you to decide something like that. That is considered original research. You need to have an academic, peer-reviewed, medical journal article that makes the claim that they are one and the same. Also, I'm not aware of any "dispute as to whether or not asymptomatic carriers should be considered super-spreaders," so perhaps you could also provide a source for that. It's kind of subtle, so if your English isn't too good, or maybe you aren't so hot at reading tone over the internet, I can see why you'd miss it, but that response reads as dismissive, snarky and a bit patronizing to me.
  - 12y ago
Udo 12y ago
I may be an unpopular opinion, but Wikipedia doesn't work. It's ruled by people who don't have quality on their minds as much as power, politics, and maintaining their fiefdoms. It's not their "fault" either, because the system disproportionally rewards and empowers people who have these traits. Encounters with Wikipedians are almost always toxic and unpleasant, be it to discuss changes to specific articles, discussions about policies, and even when it comes to throwing new ideas around on how the status quo could be improved. That's because they are generally very pleased with the status quo. People that weren't have been driven out long ago. One of these days, I hope there will be a meaningful fork, and I hopefully article versions will simply be voted on. Actually if anyone is interested in doing an experiment in this space, shoot me an email, I'd like to work on something like that.
- 3rd3 12y ago
  I’m curious, why do you think voting on article versions will make it better?
  - pan69 12y ago
    I think it's voting edits, not articles that's meant here.
    - dthunt 12y ago
      Comments > Votes.
  - Udo 12y ago
    Moving towards a meritocratic model would be one of many steps that are worth experimenting with, but it can't be the only one. Culture needs to be addressed specifically, though if the current Wikipedia population stays just where they are that could be a great start. There would of course have to be some technical changes as well.
    - dragonwriter 12y ago
      How is that not a non-sequitur? I mean, what does voting have to do with meritocracy (usually, its considered characteristic of democracy, not meritocracy.)
Workaphobia 12y ago
Article makes it sound like the student was being shut out unfairly and that the entrenched editor was hostile or even sexist. This isn't borne out at all by the talk page. It looks like there was just an edit war and a call for citation, with further discussion pending.
- watwut 12y ago
  Article interprets wikipedian behavior as hostile, but where did you seen sexism? There is brief part where it discuss typical male vs female style of argumentation, but I found no sexism accusation there.
- acqq 12y ago
  If you check the history yourself, you'll see that everything the student contributed was deleted twice by the wikipedian. The contributions were not modified, simply everything completely removed.
  - fyrabanks 12y ago
    I don't agree with it, but I could see how the author would justify those edits. The author rolled back edits that he/she felt were unfounded (whether or not they are is a topic for another debate). The student then reverted all those rollbacks without any discussion on the Talk page or edifying comments in their changes. The attempted discussion appears to have happened after this. The only difference between good- and bad-faith edits here is that the student does not understand Wikipedia policy. Now, the way the original author responded is completely inappropriate given WP:DNB (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BITE). A couple people have already tried having that conversation with the author, and he/she still incorrectly feels the onus is on the (naive) editor.
    - acqq 12y ago
      Please do show how deleting everything that was contributed by the student can be justified (you say that you "could see how" the wikipedian "would justify" the reverts to the pre-student's-contribution-state of the article). I can't see, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&diff=605103027&oldid=605102801 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&di... Obviously the deleted material, that is, everything that the student previously contributed, contained the citations (on the left). Still everything was deleted by the strange behaving wikipedian. The difference I link to shows the effects of the second deletion of the student's newly contributed material by the wikipedian. How can that be justified? I understand that the wikipedian didn't want the original research. But was it all really just the original research?
shele 12y ago
Before you frame this as a gender communication problem, I would consider actually talking to the Wikipedian you refer to in your article...
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  As far as I can tell both editors were female (at least, Malke is a female name).
  - shele 12y ago
    Exactly those are the misconceptions you might clear up while talking to somebody ;-)
emsy 12y ago
I made similar experiences and heard stories worse than this all over the web. It may sound funny, but Wikipedia could learn a lot from games like LoL and Dota 2 and how they deal with bad behaviour. Right now I don't see anything happen, and that's the reason why I willfully deny Wikipedia any donation.
err4nt 12y ago
When I start a Wikipedia article, it gets expanded. When I edit a Wikipedia article, it gets immediately reverted, often accompanied by ad hominem attacks on my character because the articles babysitter didn't want this or that section cluttering up his nice short little summary. I am completely demoralized from editing Wikipedia, and though I still use it I SURELY won't be donating any of my time to helping that spectacle
- araneae 12y ago
  I have an opposite experience. When I start an article, it gets flagged for deletion. Then I have to defend it. If I expand an article no one seems to notice.
aaron695 12y ago
I'm sorry but I'm sick of f@#$wit teachers thinking Wikipedia is a fun project for their students. It is supposed to be the repository of human knowledge. Not the quality such that a student 'learning' about a subject can do an assignment of editing it. When this student has long gone, it's the Wikipedians who have to clean up the mess. What real Wikipedians do is clean up vandalism, correct spelling and grammar, arbitrate differences of opinion. They don't just sit around creating content then leave. If you really want to help Wiki, work on teaching students the politics and how to do the real work that's needed to make it so great.
- cpncrunch 12y ago
  Actually, if you look at this article you'll see that it did need expanding, and the student's edits were mostly an improvement. There were a few issues with sourcing our synthesis, but nothing major. In my opinion we need to get more people like this involved in editing, rather than pushing them away. There are lots of articles that need help, and it's a great learning experience.
facepalm 12y ago
Quote from the article: "However, men tended to assert their opinions as “facts,” whereas women tended to phrase their informative messages as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts." Seriously? This is just drivel. I'm sorry her edits were undone, but that's hardly a gender issue. Just try arguing with a feminist, then you won't see "informative messages phrased as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts". In fact, that phrase disproves itself.
- alukima 12y ago
  But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies. She didn't accuse either sex of communicating incorrectly, which is the line you hear from SJWs. I think she made a good point. Many people have commented that they thought his tone was fine. Others have said his tone sounded patronizing. I don't think anyone is wrong. We can't write off the people who don't share our communication style, which is what you're doing when you call it 'drivel'.
  - facepalm 12y ago
    Can you point me to some of those studies, please? It sounds extremely sexist to me to make such a claim. My experience with men has been different as well. Also my experience with women (they are not all timid about their opinions). In any case, I don't see the relevance of the theory to the Wikipedia incident. So why does she quote it? Because the Wikipedia editor happens to be male, and the quote is supposed to discredit all male opinions. She wrote a whole blog article about it - is that an example of "an informative messages phrased as a suggestion, offer, or other non-assertive acts"? I don't think so - she disproves the theory, yet you defend it. If you are a woman, you also disprove the theory, because you claim a fact: "But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies." That's not a suggestion, offer, or non-assertive comment you made.
    - thebooktocome 12y ago
      You could follow the link supplied by the author, and references therein....
gPphX 12y ago
http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia Who Runs Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)

105 points by jcurbo 12y ago

It didn't take much imagination to realize that this problem with Wikipedia is a vast improvement over traditional encyclopedias. Britannica would not have had an article, a public record of edits, or a way for a student to even participate in its improvement except perhaps via a few internships with limited responsibility well below authorship or editorial privilege. It shows up on my computer, but it is still a human institution.

ForHackernews 12y ago
Somebody wasted their time and effort, had their feelings hurt, and was discouraged in their interests. That's not an improvement over traditional encyclopedias.
- fixermark 12y ago
  Having your feelings hurt and appreciating (and overcoming) the sense of wasted time and effort is actually valuable experience for someone who is focused on academia (which one could infer, as the student in question was involved in an Honors Conversion). A Wikipedia edit reversal is frustrating, but not as frustrating as a thesis pursuit or academic journal publication rejection. The takeaway I get from this story is actually that Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age.
  - niels_olson 12y ago
    > Wikipedia could serve as a lower-cost learning experience for budding young academics; the student got a real taste of having their input considered and rejected by a semi-anonymous stranger in a position of editorial power, which is a valuable (and hard) lesson to acquire at a young age. This should be standard Welcoming Committee text.
- brudgers 12y ago
  In certain of the characteristics mentioned above the negro would appear to stand on a lower evolutionary plane than the white man, and to be more closely related to the highest anthro-poids. The characteristics are length of arm, prognathism, a heavy massive cranium with large zygomatic arches, flat nose depressed at base, &c. But in one important respect, the character of the hair, the white man stands in closer relation to the higher apes than does the Negro. Mentally the negro is inferior to the white. The remark of F. Manetta, made after a long study of the negro in America, may be taken as generally true of the whole race: " the negro children were sharp, intelligent and full of vivacity, but on approaching the adult period a gradual change set in. The intellect seemed to become clouded, animation giving place to a sort of lethargy, briskness yielding to indolence. We must necessarily suppose that the development of the negro and white proceeds on different lines. While with the latter the volume of the brain grows with the expansion of the brainpan, in the former the growth of the brain is on the contrary arrested by the premature closing of the cranial sutures and lateral pressure of the frontal bone. 3 This explanation is reasonable and even probable as a contributing cause; but evidence is lacking on the subject and the arrest or even deterioration in mental develop- ment is no doubt very largely due to the fact that after puberty sexual matters take the first place in the negro's life and thoughts. At the same time his environment has not been su:h as would tend to produce in him the restless energy which has led to the progress of the white race; and the easy conditions of tropical life and the fertility of the soil have reduced the struggle for existence to a minimum. But though the mental inferiority of the negro to [the white or yellow races is a fact, it has often been exaggerated; the negro is largely the creature of his environment, and it is not fair to judge of his mental capacity by tests taken directly from the environment of the white man, as for instance tests in mental arithmetic; skill in reckoning is necessary to the white race, and it has cultivated this faculty; but it is not necessary to the negro. On the other hand negroes far surpass white men in acuteness of vision, hearing, sense of direction and topography. A native who has once visited a particular locality will rarely fail to recognize it again. For the rest, the mental constitution of the negro is very similar to that of a child, normally good-natured and cheerful, but subject to sudden fits of emotion and passion during which he is capable of performing acts of singular atrocity, impressionable, vain, but often exhibiting in the capacity of servant a dog-like fidelity which has stood the supreme test. Given suitable training, the negro is capable of becoming a craftsman of considerable skill, particularly in metal work, carpentry and carving. The bronze castings by the cire perdue process, and the cups and horns of ivory elaborately carved, which were produced by the natives of Guinea after their intercourse with the Portuguese of the i6th century, bear ample witness to this. But the rapid decline and practical evanescence of both industries, when that intercourse was interrupted, shows that the native craftsman was raised for the moment >above his normal level by direct foreign inspiration, and was unable to sustain the high quality of his work when that inspiration failed. -- Encyclopedia Britannica 11th Edition Hurt feelings are hardly the worst byproduct of Encyclopedia policies in regard to editorials and authorship. https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich/encyclopaediabri19chisrich_djvu.txt https://archive.org/stream/encyclopaediabri19chisrich/encycl...

x1798DE 12y ago

This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days - someone tries to make changes to a Wikipedia article, the changes are reverted and they make a blog post or run to the media about how unfair Wikipedia is. There are about 3 paragraphs on the talk page on this. The student and the experienced editor went back and forth maybe 3 times. The fact that a high school student didn't make high quality edits to Wikipedia should not be super shocking, and the reversions were all justified by the reverter. Maybe there's a culture shock, but it's part of the Bold-Revert-Discuss cycle that is integral to Wikipedia quality control. You make changes without asking permission, if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus. Frankly, this seems like a perfect teaching tool - you've got someone right there willing to do the teaching for you, because they're engaging your student in a debate about the content of the material. Maybe the student doesn't get published along the way, but she can still get a grade, and she can learn the essential skill that is justifying her positions (or the equally important skill of accepting when you are wrong).

Hermel 12y ago
> This seems to be a story that happens a lot these days Which could be an indication that there is also a problem with wikipedia. In particular, I think when someone takes a genuine effort to improve an article and that effort is reverted, there should be a clear indication of the reasons. In this case, whenever malte pointed to specific issues with the article, the student corrected them immediately. > if someone comes along and disagrees with the changes, they revert to the consensus version, then you discuss it and try to reach a consensus. I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful.
- x1798DE 12y ago
  If anything the problem with Wikipedia causing this is a PR problem, not a problem with the culture of Wikipedia. The articles I see are usually of the form, "I don't edit Wikipedia, I thought it would be this way, but it's another way and that was unpleasant!" You're always going to get that sort of situation - I could just as easily run to the media and say, "I tried posting a comment on HackerNews and it just dropped to the bottom of the comment stack and turned super light grey so that you could barely see it!" If these were well-formed arguments about the actual culture of Wikipedia and not just newbie-shock, it'd be a lot more understandable. >I don't see much effort to reach consensus on the editor's side. Most comments are in the style of "please read the rules before editing" - which is not very helpful. I've said elsewhere here I think the whole situation would have been much more fruitful if the teacher had been or had engaged with an experienced Wikipedia editor to put these sorts of comments in the right context. Personally, I think the WP:SYNTH document is concise and clear enough that it isn't unreasonable to point to it after the reversion, but that's beside the point. The student has the option of continuing to make changes to their text to try and fix the problems the experienced editor pointed out, or if they think the changes are appropriate, go through another dispute resolution mechanism if the experienced editor is unwilling to budge. There are many such mechanisms, none of which were tried in this situation, because inexperienced editors don't know how to take advantage of them.

VLM 12y ago

Well, look on the bright side, she only got bullied and reverted, whereas her hard work could have gotten the attention of the deletionists, and the entire page could have been wiped out. Why insult just one student by reverting, when you can insult an entire discipline by deleting?

GabrielF00 12y ago

I was a Wikipedia campus ambassador for two courses - one at Boston College the other at the School of the Museum of Fine Arts. The students were assigned to contribute to articles and my role was to help them navigate Wikipedia. I thought both courses went well - the BC class in particular had a professor who was very involved in selecting articles, having the students write drafts and reflect on their work. The students wrote a lot of good content and I had four or five of their articles featured on the Wikipedia home page's Did You Know section for new articles (More would have been featured but Wikipedia's rules for what qualifies are pretty arbitrary). There were three cases out of fifteen that were problematic - in two cases someone expanded the article while the students were working on their drafts, pre-empting their work, in the third case after the class had concluded some editors felt that the student's work misrepresented the topic and rewrote it. Overall the students wrote well-sourced, well-written content and I think they had a good experience.

x1798DE 12y ago
Looking at this particular case, I'd say the experience would have been much better if the teacher had been an experienced Wikipedia editor or had contacted one of the projects that deals with this sort of thing ahead of time to put them in touch with a mentor editor. The article mentions that seniority is important (I've never found that to be the case), but what's actually important is understanding the kind of content that Wikipedia is looking for. In this case, the reversions were mostly because of "original research" violations, where the student synthesized new opinions out of the sources. This is something you'd do if you were writing a high school report on a topic, but on Wikipedia you're really only allowed to summarize what the sources say. Having someone who understands that around would have helped both student and teacher understand why the material is being removed, and how it could be improved if they still wanted to contribute to the article.
- niels_olson 12y ago
  You have a lot of thoughts about how this could have been done better. Have you passed any of these along to Professor Duffy?

fixermark 12y ago

If I understand correctly, the "Talk" page on Wikipedia also has an archived edit history. I'm looking at the most recent version [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Super-spreader] and the revisions [http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super-spreader&action=history http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Super-spreade...], and I'm having a hard time seeing the bullying---it looks like an individual defending an edit, another individual defending the revert with explanation of what is missing, and the first individual adding additional data to clarify that the original edit isn't "original research." Can someone help highlight the bullying for me? Is there a subsection of the Talk history that I'm missing / can Talk history be deleted?

Hermel 12y ago
I think the problem are the reverts without specific explanations. As far as I see, the student corrected all the specific errors that were pointed out. Reverting an article of someone who put a lot of effort into creating it without giving a clear and specific explanation is frustrating.
- fixermark 12y ago
  Ah, good point. I didn't correlate the times on the edit/reverts on the main page with the Talk page updates.
ForHackernews 12y ago
> Thing is, on Wikipedia it isn't really up to you to decide something like that. That is considered original research. You need to have an academic, peer-reviewed, medical journal article that makes the claim that they are one and the same. Also, I'm not aware of any "dispute as to whether or not asymptomatic carriers should be considered super-spreaders," so perhaps you could also provide a source for that. It's kind of subtle, so if your English isn't too good, or maybe you aren't so hot at reading tone over the internet, I can see why you'd miss it, but that response reads as dismissive, snarky and a bit patronizing to me.
- 12y ago

Udo 12y ago

I may be an unpopular opinion, but Wikipedia doesn't work. It's ruled by people who don't have quality on their minds as much as power, politics, and maintaining their fiefdoms. It's not their "fault" either, because the system disproportionally rewards and empowers people who have these traits. Encounters with Wikipedians are almost always toxic and unpleasant, be it to discuss changes to specific articles, discussions about policies, and even when it comes to throwing new ideas around on how the status quo could be improved. That's because they are generally very pleased with the status quo. People that weren't have been driven out long ago. One of these days, I hope there will be a meaningful fork, and I hopefully article versions will simply be voted on. Actually if anyone is interested in doing an experiment in this space, shoot me an email, I'd like to work on something like that.

3rd3 12y ago
I’m curious, why do you think voting on article versions will make it better?
- pan69 12y ago
  I think it's voting edits, not articles that's meant here.
  - dthunt 12y ago
    Comments > Votes.
- Udo 12y ago
  Moving towards a meritocratic model would be one of many steps that are worth experimenting with, but it can't be the only one. Culture needs to be addressed specifically, though if the current Wikipedia population stays just where they are that could be a great start. There would of course have to be some technical changes as well.
  - dragonwriter 12y ago
    How is that not a non-sequitur? I mean, what does voting have to do with meritocracy (usually, its considered characteristic of democracy, not meritocracy.)

Workaphobia 12y ago

Article makes it sound like the student was being shut out unfairly and that the entrenched editor was hostile or even sexist. This isn't borne out at all by the talk page. It looks like there was just an edit war and a call for citation, with further discussion pending.

watwut 12y ago
Article interprets wikipedian behavior as hostile, but where did you seen sexism? There is brief part where it discuss typical male vs female style of argumentation, but I found no sexism accusation there.
acqq 12y ago
If you check the history yourself, you'll see that everything the student contributed was deleted twice by the wikipedian. The contributions were not modified, simply everything completely removed.
- fyrabanks 12y ago
  I don't agree with it, but I could see how the author would justify those edits. The author rolled back edits that he/she felt were unfounded (whether or not they are is a topic for another debate). The student then reverted all those rollbacks without any discussion on the Talk page or edifying comments in their changes. The attempted discussion appears to have happened after this. The only difference between good- and bad-faith edits here is that the student does not understand Wikipedia policy. Now, the way the original author responded is completely inappropriate given WP:DNB (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BITE). A couple people have already tried having that conversation with the author, and he/she still incorrectly feels the onus is on the (naive) editor.
  - acqq 12y ago
    Please do show how deleting everything that was contributed by the student can be justified (you say that you "could see how" the wikipedian "would justify" the reverts to the pre-student's-contribution-state of the article). I can't see, please see: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&diff=605103027&oldid=605102801 https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Super-spreader&di... Obviously the deleted material, that is, everything that the student previously contributed, contained the citations (on the left). Still everything was deleted by the strange behaving wikipedian. The difference I link to shows the effects of the second deletion of the student's newly contributed material by the wikipedian. How can that be justified? I understand that the wikipedian didn't want the original research. But was it all really just the original research?

shele 12y ago

Before you frame this as a gender communication problem, I would consider actually talking to the Wikipedian you refer to in your article...

cpncrunch 12y ago
As far as I can tell both editors were female (at least, Malke is a female name).
- shele 12y ago
  Exactly those are the misconceptions you might clear up while talking to somebody ;-)

emsy 12y ago

I made similar experiences and heard stories worse than this all over the web. It may sound funny, but Wikipedia could learn a lot from games like LoL and Dota 2 and how they deal with bad behaviour. Right now I don't see anything happen, and that's the reason why I willfully deny Wikipedia any donation.

err4nt 12y ago

When I start a Wikipedia article, it gets expanded. When I edit a Wikipedia article, it gets immediately reverted, often accompanied by ad hominem attacks on my character because the articles babysitter didn't want this or that section cluttering up his nice short little summary. I am completely demoralized from editing Wikipedia, and though I still use it I SURELY won't be donating any of my time to helping that spectacle

araneae 12y ago
I have an opposite experience. When I start an article, it gets flagged for deletion. Then I have to defend it. If I expand an article no one seems to notice.

aaron695 12y ago

I'm sorry but I'm sick of f@#$wit teachers thinking Wikipedia is a fun project for their students. It is supposed to be the repository of human knowledge. Not the quality such that a student 'learning' about a subject can do an assignment of editing it. When this student has long gone, it's the Wikipedians who have to clean up the mess. What real Wikipedians do is clean up vandalism, correct spelling and grammar, arbitrate differences of opinion. They don't just sit around creating content then leave. If you really want to help Wiki, work on teaching students the politics and how to do the real work that's needed to make it so great.

cpncrunch 12y ago
Actually, if you look at this article you'll see that it did need expanding, and the student's edits were mostly an improvement. There were a few issues with sourcing our synthesis, but nothing major. In my opinion we need to get more people like this involved in editing, rather than pushing them away. There are lots of articles that need help, and it's a great learning experience.

facepalm 12y ago

Quote from the article: "However, men tended to assert their opinions as “facts,” whereas women tended to phrase their informative messages as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts." Seriously? This is just drivel. I'm sorry her edits were undone, but that's hardly a gender issue. Just try arguing with a feminist, then you won't see "informative messages phrased as suggestions, offers, and other non-assertive acts". In fact, that phrase disproves itself.

alukima 12y ago
But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies. She didn't accuse either sex of communicating incorrectly, which is the line you hear from SJWs. I think she made a good point. Many people have commented that they thought his tone was fine. Others have said his tone sounded patronizing. I don't think anyone is wrong. We can't write off the people who don't share our communication style, which is what you're doing when you call it 'drivel'.
- facepalm 12y ago
  Can you point me to some of those studies, please? It sounds extremely sexist to me to make such a claim. My experience with men has been different as well. Also my experience with women (they are not all timid about their opinions). In any case, I don't see the relevance of the theory to the Wikipedia incident. So why does she quote it? Because the Wikipedia editor happens to be male, and the quote is supposed to discredit all male opinions. She wrote a whole blog article about it - is that an example of "an informative messages phrased as a suggestion, offer, or other non-assertive acts"? I don't think so - she disproves the theory, yet you defend it. If you are a woman, you also disprove the theory, because you claim a fact: "But it's not drivel. Men and women communicate differently, that's supported by many, many studies." That's not a suggestion, offer, or non-assertive comment you made.
  - thebooktocome 12y ago
    You could follow the link supplied by the author, and references therein....

gPphX 12y ago

http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whorunswikipedia Who Runs Wikipedia? (Aaron Swartz's Raw Thought)