The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
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The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Andrew Gray
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"Like Boiling a Frog", David Runciman. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/runc01_.html
From the last issue of the London Review of Books, a long and chewy article about Wikipedia; generally positive, though it draws attention to the problems of writing quality and "recentism". There's a review of Andrew Lih's book buried somewhere in it, too... -- - Andrew Gray andrew.gray@... _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Charles Matthews
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Andrew Gray wrote:
> "Like Boiling a Frog", David Runciman. http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/runc01_.html > > >From the last issue of the London Review of Books, a long and chewy > article about Wikipedia; generally positive, though it draws attention > to the problems of writing quality and "recentism". There's a review > of Andrew Lih's book buried somewhere in it, too... > > "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the readers’ comments that can now be appended online to almost any article tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." Worth reading for that insight alone. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Fred Bauder-2
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> Andrew Gray wrote:
>> "Like Boiling a Frog", David Runciman. >> http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/runc01_.html >> >> >From the last issue of the London Review of Books, a long and chewy >> article about Wikipedia; generally positive, though it draws attention >> to the problems of writing quality and "recentism". There's a review >> of Andrew Lih's book buried somewhere in it, too... >> >> > "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, > but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the > readers comments that can now be appended online to almost any article > tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." > > Worth reading for that insight alone. > > Charles Imagine what would happen if the readers could actually get at the articles. Fred _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Sage Ross
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On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 2:03 PM, Charles
Matthews<charles.r.matthews@...> wrote: > "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, > but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the > readers’ comments that can now be appended online to almost any article > tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." > > Worth reading for that insight alone. I don't buy the premise that reader comments have much, if anything, to do with newspaper woes. The internet has thrown newspapers' business model under the bus, but reader comments and other forms of participation have mostly been good developments. Major newspapers have bigger audiences than they ever had even while ad revenue declines, and they have generally been late on the bandwagon for allowing reader comments. At New York Times, for instance, there still aren't comments on regular news articles and comments on editorials and op-eds are (as of pretty recently) curated, meaning that editors can identify and highlight the most insightful comments. The decline in newspaper quality also started well before the Internet became ubiquitous and had more to do with business-minded editorial decisions than anything else. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Steve Bennett-8
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On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:03 AM, Charles
Matthews<charles.r.matthews@...> wrote: > "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, > but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the > readers’ comments that can now be appended online to almost any article > tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." I don't get it. Reader communities are one of the few ways a newspaper reporting a global story can distinguish itself from every other paper on the net. Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by David Gerard-2
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2009/6/16 Steve Bennett <stevagewp@...>:
> On Tue, Jun 9, 2009 at 4:03 AM, Charles > Matthews<charles.r.matthews@...> wrote: >> "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, >> but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the >> readers’ comments that can now be appended online to almost any article >> tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." > I don't get it. Reader communities are one of the few ways a newspaper > reporting a global story can distinguish itself from every other paper > on the net. Yes, but actually reading them too often makes one want to spork one's brain out. http://ifyoulikeitsomuchwhydontyougolivethere.com/ - "best" of the BBC "Have Your Say" - d. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Steve Bennett-8
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On Tue, Jun 16, 2009 at 9:53 AM, David Gerard<dgerard@...> wrote:
> Yes, but actually reading them too often makes one want to spork one's > brain out. The great unwashed are unwashed - so what? I'm generally happy to wade through Joe Sixpack's uninformed opinion if there are a few gems here and there. It was quite enlightening for me recently to read the comments on YouTube recordings of Chopin piano pieces. In amongst all the "it's beautiful!" and "asians suck!" there were actually some fairly insightful remarks. (not sure what this had to do with anything. hrm.) Steve _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Cormac Lawler
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On Mon, Jun 8, 2009 at 7:03 PM, Charles Matthews <
charles.r.matthews@...> wrote: > Andrew Gray wrote: > > "Like Boiling a Frog", David Runciman. > http://www.lrb.co.uk/v31/n10/runc01_.html > > > > >From the last issue of the London Review of Books, a long and chewy > > article about Wikipedia; generally positive, though it draws attention > > to the problems of writing quality and "recentism". There's a review > > of Andrew Lih's book buried somewhere in it, too... > > > > > "... encyclopedias have been made better by the advent of the internet, > but newspapers have been made worse: the cumulative impact of the > readers’ comments that can now be appended online to almost any article > tends to diminish most forms of human understanding." > > Worth reading for that insight alone. I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section does? What is it about this way of working - this mode of production - that works well? And what is afforded by 'open commenting' that the wiki model doesn't? (I don't we should overly idealise the wiki model - I'm sure we've all sporked our brains out over on-wiki affairs at some stage or another.) But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's book, the reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written afterword as better written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of interest but rather indulgent, containing too much incidental detail about people Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully happy about that (!) - but it's an interesting take. Cormac _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Charles Matthews
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Cormac Lawler wrote:
> > I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness > the energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can > be more productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly > nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section does? Of course just about any model is superior to encouraging low-level ranting. The "open comments" are generally less interesting than a letters page because there may be no filter. Or, as in the case of the Sunday Times it seems, there is moderation but only to save embarrassment to the paper. WP's basic idea of "merciless editing" is one way, and it gets to one major issue at the root: touchtyping skills don't make you a great writer, while basic copyediting skills can transform rubbish prose. > > But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's book, the > reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written afterword as better > written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of interest but > rather indulgent, containing too much incidental detail about people > Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully happy about that > (!) - but it's an interesting take. Time for one of my current pet theories: the "triangle of takes" on upgrading WP. Andrew Lih represents one vertex, as you can see in his recent NYT interview, where he cites popular culture and politics as the drivers in WP. Basically this is about being very current in our coverage. Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they don't care about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to the point where there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third vertex is comprehensiveness. Lih's book - well, I haven't read it yet (sorry, Andrew), but you can see it fitting roughly in with where I locate him on the triangle. The "incidental detail" is often how popular culture or political journalism is (deliberately) written, rather than trying for in-depth or serious. Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency, comprehensiveness, quality. Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves somewhere in the interior, and this gives a kind of map of prorities. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by David Gerard-2
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2009/6/21 Cormac Lawler <cormaggio@...>:
> I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the > energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more > productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a > newspaper open comment section does? What is it about this way of working - > this mode of production - that works well? And what is afforded by 'open > commenting' that the wiki model doesn't? (I don't we should overly idealise > the wiki model - I'm sure we've all sporked our brains out over on-wiki > affairs at some stage or another.) I recall a presentation by Brion Vibber with a slide that said something like: * Let any idiot edit your website * Make sure the good idiots outnumber the bad idiots - d. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Ray Saintonge
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Charles Matthews wrote:
> Cormac Lawler wrote: > >> I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness >> the energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can >> be more productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly >> nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section does? >> > Of course just about any model is superior to encouraging low-level > ranting. The "open comments" are generally less interesting than a > letters page because there may be no filter. Or, as in the case of the > Sunday Times it seems, there is moderation but only to save > embarrassment to the paper. WP's basic idea of "merciless editing" is > one way, and it gets to one major issue at the root: touchtyping skills > don't make you a great writer, while basic copyediting skills can > transform rubbish prose. > The difference between merciless editing and open comments is as much the difference between mainspace and talk pages. There needs to be a place of "low-level ranting", which often verges on the incoherent. Hopefully there are enough pigs to smell out the truffles in the pile of vegemite. I feel very concerned when some individuals determine that certain material should be removed from a talk page because it does not serve to improve the corresponding article. >> But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's book, the >> reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written afterword as better >> written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of interest but >> rather indulgent, containing too much incidental detail about people >> Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully happy about that >> (!) - but it's an interesting take. >> > Time for one of my current pet theories: the "triangle of takes" on > upgrading WP. Andrew Lih represents one vertex, as you can see in his > recent NYT interview, where he cites popular culture and politics as the > drivers in WP. Basically this is about being very current in our > coverage. Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they don't care > about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to the point where > there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third vertex is > comprehensiveness. Lih's book - well, I haven't read it yet (sorry, > Andrew), but you can see it fitting roughly in with where I locate him > on the triangle. The "incidental detail" is often how popular culture or > political journalism is (deliberately) written, rather than trying for > in-depth or serious. > > Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency, comprehensiveness, quality. > Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves somewhere in > the interior, and this gives a kind of map of prorities. > being a variation of comprehensiveness in the time dimension. Looking at the recent Iranian election, where but on Wikipedia could one get a breakdown of the official vote-count by province. (Whether or not that count is fraudulent is quite a different matter, because such a break-down could be sought just as much in non-controversial circumstances.) Traditional electronic journalism would only bore people by droning on with such statistics; patterns of information are not obvious in such a linear presentation. Print journalism could present the information more comprehensively, but if it appears in to-day's newspaper you may not want the information until next week ... by which time you will have already used that newspaper to wrap the kitchen garbage. Wikipedia is in a position to negate both of these limitations. Iran specialists may be able to find that information on familiar sites, but for generalists it would take considerable effort to find those sites. FA people are like teachers who teach for the sake of passing exams; it is easy for them to perceive quality as exemplified in a manuscript that is immutably ready for the printer. To do this they must ignore the dynamic quality of NPOV. Ec _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Ray Saintonge
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David Gerard wrote:
> 2009/6/21 Cormac Lawler <cormaggio@...>: > >> I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the >> energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more >> productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a >> newspaper open comment section does? What is it about this way of working - >> this mode of production - that works well? And what is afforded by 'open >> commenting' that the wiki model doesn't? (I don't we should overly idealise >> the wiki model - I'm sure we've all sporked our brains out over on-wiki >> affairs at some stage or another.) >> > I recall a presentation by Brion Vibber with a slide that said something like: > > * Let any idiot edit your website > * Make sure the good idiots outnumber the bad idiots > > prove that they are not idiots, or to confine the other idiots. Ec _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Charles Matthews
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Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Charles Matthews wrote: >> >> Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency, comprehensiveness, quality. >> Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves somewhere in >> the interior, and this gives a kind of map of pr[i]orities. >> > I wouldn't see it as a triangle, but as a bi-polarity with currency > being a variation of comprehensiveness in the time dimension. The fact that Lih made an issue on the timeliness of the inclusion of [[Pownce]] start-up, whose mayfly life was within 2008, while my current interests are (as you know) getting DNB-level detail on the 17th century into enWP suggests to me that these priorities are worth distinguishing. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Steve Bennett-8
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My favourite sentence from the article: "the commonest vice of entries
on Wikipedia [is] not knowing when to stop." _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Carcharoth
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On Sun, Jun 21, 2009 at 11:02 AM, Cormac Lawler <cormaggio@...> wrote:
<snip> > I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the > energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more > productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a > newspaper open comment section does? What is it about this way of working - > this mode of production - that works well? And what is afforded by 'open > commenting' that the wiki model doesn't? (I don't we should overly idealise > the wiki model - I'm sure we've all sporked our brains out over on-wiki > affairs at some stage or another.) I was reading a newspaper on a ferry journey today (the newspaper being 'The Guardian') and the Wikipedia model of editing was mentioned in relation to a project involving "crowd-sourcing" an analysis of the expenses of British MPs (there is a current scandal about this). Let me see if I can find it online anywhere. Here we go, the project itself: http://mps-expenses.guardian.co.uk/ Lots of reporting of the project here: http://www.google.co.uk/search?hl=en&q=guardian+crowd+sourcing+expenses It's certainly an interesting way of harnessing the energy of the public. The Guardian article I read was titled "A crowd gathers as MPs' money proves surprise web hit". Issue was 22nd June 2009. Bottom of the front page. The article is online here: http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2009/jun/21/mps-expenses-crowd-sourcing-data The mention of Wikipedia was as follows: "[the Guardian's project] provides something of a riposte to one Telegraph commentator who dismissed the idea that a "collective of Kool-Aid slurping Wikipedians" could conduct "rigorous analysis necessary for the recent MPs' expenses investigation"." So not overly complimentary, but interesting. If anyone could find the Telegraph article that is being quoted, that would be good. The closet I got was this: http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2009/06/03/telegraph-journos-with-huge-chips-on-shoulders/ ...which is an interesting blog in its own right. In this article: http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2009/06/19/236524/guardian-exposes-mps-expenses-to-crowdsourcing.htm I read that the project involves: "a Django application running on Amazon EC2". Could someone technically minded explain how that differs from a wiki? Carcharoth _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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Re: The London Review of Books on Wikipedia
by Charles Matthews
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> I read that the project involves: "a Django application running on Amazon EC2". > > Could someone technically minded explain how that differs from a wiki? > > Carcharoth > See [[Hot Club de Brazil et Shoreditch]]. Basically it's a wiki with more of a rhythm section and Latin feel. Charles _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@... To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l |
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