Wikipedia:Wikipedia Signpost/2009-08-10/In the news

In the news

Shrinking community, GLAM-Wiki, and more

Research on where the newcomers went

New Scientist reports on research by the Palo Alto Research Center (PARC) on the reduced rate of new article creation and casual editor participation since 2006.^{[itn 1]} PARC argues that a move from adding new content towards refining existing content has resulted in more content disputes, in which established editors can overwhelm casual or new users by wikilawyering. One of the people leading the Wikimedia Foundation strategic review stated this was only one of several interpretations of the data, noting for example that the increasing use of spam bots may explain the observed increased rate of reversion.^{[itn 2]}^{[itn 3]} (See 2007 Signpost article on PARC's WikiDashboard and 2009 Signpost article on the decline in editing activity.)

The Age combined the PARC story with coverage of the GLAM conference in Canberra. Framing the PARC argument as "new contributors were being pushed out by the rusted-on Wikipedia elite," Users Liam Wyatt and Mathias Schindler were interviewed explaining the conference goals and factors behind the PARC results.^{[itn 4]}

GLAM-Wiki conference

In addition to the above-noted story from The Age, several other press outlets covered the GLAM-Wiki conference (GLAM = Galleries, Libraries, Archives, Museums). Before it began, stories from iTWire—"Wikimedia: Conference seeks open cultural content"—Computerworld—"Wikimedia event seeks to open up Australian culture"—and an interview on ABC Radio National described the purpose of the conference and featured perspective from conference organizer Liam Wyatt (User:Wittylama).

During the conference, many participants relayed the conference goings-on via Twitter (using the hashtag #glam-wiki and several others), and a number of reflective blog posts have appeared since the conference ended. For more news coverage and more on the perspective of the conference participants, see the Wikimedia Australia website, which cataloging blog posts and other media.

In brief

Softpedia picked up the announcement by Fred von Lohmann of the Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) that it was representing User:Dcoetzee, who has been accused of various wrongdoings relating to his downloading of images from the website of the National Portrait Gallery (NPG).^{[itn 5]} (See previous Signpost article.) The EFF also made available its letter of July 20th to the NPG's lawyers.^{[itn 6]}
The Karnataka Knowledge Commission has declared its priority of starting "an online encyclopedia in Kannada, like Wikipedia in English."^{[itn 7]} The article does not mention the existence of Kannada Wikipedia, currently ranked 99th in size among Wikipedias.
Wikipedian Pamela Morris wrote a letter to the editor about the article Rosewood massacre, which appeared in the Cedar Key Beacon: "Acknowledging Rosewood will lead to healing". Morris points to the continued significance of the racially motivated 1923 massacre for the residents of Levy County (including the communities of Sumner and Cedar Key). She expresses her hope that the renewed publicity for the incident—the article was Today's Featured Article for 4 August—might be a positive opportunity for the affected communities to "personify the human ability to redeem themselves if the will is strong enough", by "declar[ing] the truth about what happened, and cast[ing] a new identity for the area."

References

^ "PART 1: The slowing growth of Wikipedia: some data, models, and explanations". The Augmented Social Cognition Research Group at Palo Alto Research Center. 22 July 2009.
^ "After the boom, is Wikipedia heading for bust?". New Scientist. 4 August 2009.
^ Also picked up by "Is Wikipedia on the wane?". Wired. 5 August 2009.
^ "Wikipedia's on the wane: study". The Age. 7 August 2009.
^ "Electronic Frontier Foundation to Represent Wikipedia User After NPG Legal Threats". Softpedia. 4 August 2009.
^ "EFF Defends Wikipedian's Right to the Public Domain". Electronic Frontier Foundation. August 3, 2009.
^ "Kannada Wikipedia soon?". The Times of India. 6 August 2009.

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Times of India

LOL YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 02:32, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Gah!

Someone wanna warn me when my bidnezz is posted all over creation? Gracious. I'm not used to being known. I broke out into a cold sweat. --Moni3 (talk) 02:55, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I wasn't sure it was you, or I would have.--ragesoss (talk) 13:56, 11 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Decline of Wikipedia

Why is anyone pretending that there is some mystery around what has caused the decline? The drop in the rate of new article creation can be directly linked to banning new article creation by unregistered users. The subsequent decline of editing in general was due to similar policies banning so called excessive detail about popular culture. In the early days people could make articles about every significant character in a book, movie, or game and detailed lists of the minor ones. Ditto articles on every episode of a television show. Whatever level of detail people wanted to go into, Wikipedia allowed it so long as the overall topic was notable. Wikilawyers put a stop to that. Now every detail has to be provably notable based on multiple references in reliable sources or the articles get 'merged' and only the briefest of descriptions are allowed. It is called "popular culture" because alot of people like it. Bar people from writing about the things they like and they have little reason to contribute. Which causes declines across the board because they don't contribute on their other interests, the topics certain people deem 'worthy' of full coverage, either. Drive away the masses by banning detailed coverage of things they are passionate about and all you've got left are elitists who pride themselves on their distaste for the 'popular culture' of the unwashed masses. --12.42.51.27 (talk) 13:00, 13 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

I hate to say it, but you sound incredibly like someone with an axe to grind. Sure disallowing unregistered article creation caused a dip in the levels, but do you think that dip was greater in "articles that didn't have a chance in the first place" or "articles that are likely to last"? Do you honestly think that swathes of people have been turned away from writing articles just because they didn't want to spend 30 seconds registering an account and another 30 finding a link to back up the claim of notability in the article? Wikipedia has had its unrestricted growth phase, and now it's time to sort the wheat from the chaff. There has always been a verifiability policy, it's just being applied more strongly to articles so that what's left is the stuff that might actually stand up to a bit of scrutiny. Now, do I miss some of the pop culture stuff? Do I think that some editors are being too strict in their application of the policy? Sure, but there are ways and means of dealing with that and mouthing off on random talk pages isn't one of them. Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 06:00, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Well I would be interested in the total shelf space=#articles*average size....which measures the content better. YellowMonkey (cricket photo poll!) paid editing=POV 06:04, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

The article implied that there was a need to study why article creation rates declined. There isn't. It is unquestionably because we stopped allowing anonymous article creation. The article implied that there was a need to study why editor activity in general has declined. Again, I don't believe there is. Many people have lost interest because the scope of information which Wikipedia accepts has been decreased, specifically by jettisoning details on popular topics which many people want to further develop. You say there are means of dealing with that, but this seems at odds with observed reality. The extent of coverage of popular culture HAS decreased. Many people HAVE stopped editing. Any 'means of dealing' with the problem seem to be failing. --12.42.51.27 (talk) 12:39, 17 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Really? Because I question your unquestionable. Like I said, I agree that there was a dip in article creation due to restricting it to registered editors, but there would also be a strong slow-down due to the lack of "low hanging fruit". Compared to the early days, there are far fewer "easy" topics to write on. And, like I said, I strongly suspect that if you looked at a metric such as "articles that were still present 5 days after creation", you would see a much weaker dip but probably a similar drop-off in growth.

As for editor participation, you can't just say it's because you can no longer add "The Simpsons made a joke about it" to every article and that's that. Of course, the question that hasn't been asked is "Should Wikipedia drop all these notability rules and such and let it return to the free-for-all it once was, or should it be striving for higher quality at the expense of editor activity?" and I think that's a matter of personal taste where you clearly fall on one side of the fence and I (and, one must assume from the way policy decisions tend to go, the majority of active Wikipedia editors) are on the other. And while you're certainly welcome to stick around and continue trying to change the way things work here, what's really stopping you from forking off "Freeforallipedia" from "Stickinthemudipedia", and setting up a new site that works just like Wikipedia used to? It's practically natural law on the internet that as a site gets older its userbase becomes more set in its ways, until the people who don't like those ways go off and start the "next big thing", and yet while Google has overtaken Yahoo and Twitter appears to be taking the lead from Facebook and Myspace I have not yet seen any such effort for Wikipedia (except, amusingly, projects that are *more* strict in one way or another, like Conservapedia or Citizendium, which certainly have never reached the critical mass to achieve much), although the TV Tropes wiki does have some of the necessary qualities.

Good grief, look at how much I'm ranting now. You want to talk about declining editor activity? Look at my contributions. I haven't made a main-space edit in over two months! Is it because I've been driven off by increasing controversy and a drop in scope? No, it's because of a whole host of different factors which have nothing to do with the on-wiki atmosphere. How about we all drop the sweeping generalisations and try to deal with the fact that people are complicated? Confusing Manifestation(Say hi!) 05:04, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

Your argument is founded on a false dichotomy: Either we can have articles on all the details of popular culture that people want to write about or we can have quality articles. In truth, there is no logic to that juxtaposition. There is no reason that we cannot have BOTH. Indeed, reducing editor activity by stopping them from writing on popular topics decreases the overall quality of the encyclopedia because they also stop writing on the 'approved' subjects.

As to 'forking off', if it were easy to do I would. Don't suppose you know an expert on setting up wikis who has some free time? --12.42.51.27 (talk) 11:48, 18 August 2009 (UTC)[reply]

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