User talk:Mikeblas/Archives/2008/April

Wikipedia improvement.

I totally agree with you that the English Wikipedia has become more about aggregation of information and less about the quality and standards of such information. I spend most of my time trying to improve existing articles, rather than adding to what we already have.

I see a lot of comments that, as Wikipedia is an electronic document, there should be no concerns about pages filling with irrelevant and unsourced information. I try to fix problems when I see them, but wind up not having the subject matter knowledge required to acomplish this most of the time. I usually wind up leaving comments in the talk page and adding flags as warranted.

Is there any Wikiproject that you would recomend that would help me focus and collaborate such efforts with other, like-minded editors? Any suggestions would be very much appreciated. As it stands I certainly feel in the minority and alone on what I try to do to help the project. LeilaniLad (talk) 00:49, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

Hi, Leilani.

For a site that takes itself so seriously (An arbitration committe? Come on!), it's remarkbly loose about establishing the needed policies and procedures -- or, the ones that would be needed if quality were actually a concern, anyway.

I've not had much luck with WikiProjects. They seem to be mostly about "claiming" articles and rating them on some scale, and then not making much progress towards fixing the articles that need help. And certainly nothing about deleting the articles that are really in trouble. It's remarkable, for instance, to find an article claimed buy such-and-so WikiProject that's just blatant copyvio.

There are some maintenance projects at Wikipedia:WikiProject Council/Directory/Wikipedia which deal with content, like the Fact and Reference check one. I don't see much evidence of their activity, though.

I've been slowly moving towards the notion that Wikipedia is fundamentally flawed. -- Mikeblas (talk) 01:55, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

While momentum seems to be growing as far as active participation in the project, I am still unconvinced that focusing this surge is an impossibilty. And, good god, I get into serious voice whenever I edit, even on talk pages. Hang on, lemme shake this persona off and go into normal conversation mode.

Ok. See, what I worry about is all this recent interest in the project turning Wikipedia into Myspace with intelectual window dressing. Recent contributions feel more like fan pages than thought out and researched articles. So I'm hanging on to the established Wikipedia policies in the hope that this core about which the rest conglomerated can serve to redirect the flow of enthusiasm into something that would enhance things, not just expand them. The reason I go into serious voice when editing is I'm trying to keep all emotion out of what I do. A lot of the problems I see with articles is that editors get personally invested in pages. They can't seem to grasp the concept that once you click the Save page button its open to everyone and they shouldn't get mad when people change things. So I approach each article with the idea that the one thing no editor can debate are the WP's.

I dunno. Maybe the only thing you can ever do to fix things is a here or a there and I'm not sure if that's enough to pull the momentum of input into something productive. I don't want to throw in the towel, that's for sure. There has to be a wiki group of some kind for people that think like me, I know I'm not the only one. I feel like if we worked togeather we could tackle one small problem at a time, but really tackle it so it doesn't just spring up again a month later elsewhere.

Sorry to pile on to your talk page like this. Just seemed like you might be a sympathetic ear I could vent to. Anyway, back into serious voice so I keep banging away at things.

Thanks for listening... LeilaniLad (talk) 02:33, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I'd like to approach pages the same way. But it doesn't work. WP's are totally debatable. Look at WP:V, the policy that completely governs the gate for inclusion in the encyclopedia. This page has been edited more than 500 times -- in the last three weeks! Even for policies that don't churn as much, they're vague. The policy doesn't explain what it really means, or what its true intent is, or how it might apply to something more concrete.

I've tried placing {{unreferenced}} and {{fact}} tags here and there, but usually nothing happens. Editors will add a single referene to a 5000-word article and remove the unreferenced tag; or simply delete the cite tag. After waiting three months or so, I've taken to actually removing the material.

Indeed, there seems to be a little too much ownership going on.

If you do find a group that you think can help change things, please do let me know. -- Mikeblas (talk) 02:58, 3 April 2008 (UTC)

I added references to Nina Blackwood

I added some references to Nina Blackwood. --Eastmain (talk) 01:57, 23 April 2008 (UTC)

Big World

Do you think the article is stub? I think it is long enough to be rated start class. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:00, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

It's unreferenced and has OR. It's a stub, since unreferenced material should be removed, anyway. -- Mikeblas (talk) 17:01, 29 April 2008 (UTC)

Hmmm. Otolemur crassicaudatus (talk) 17:03, 29 April 2008 (UTC)