Talk:Who Writes Wikipedia?
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- You should do this for Wikimedia at the Crossroads too...
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[edit] Who votes?
Eric: "I tried to vote, but since I am one of your "occasional contributors" (I've edited only one article to make content changes), I am not eligible to vote. It appears that the opinions of "occasional contributors" will not be heard." [1]
William Loughborough: "The people Aaron shows to have crafted the content are largely disenfranchised while the "eyeshade editors" rule." [2]
A very thought provoking piece, Aaron. I was surprised that you missed (or did not explicity state) a conclusion I expected. From your article:
Unfortunately, precisely because such people are only occasional contributors, their opinions aren't heard by the current Wikipedia process. They don't get involved in policy debates, they don't go to meetups, and they don't hang out with Jimbo Wales. And so things that might help them get pushed on the backburner, assuming they're even proposed.
Exactly- and these same people (low-edit-volume content contributors) are excluded from the Board of Directors election. From http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Special:Boardvote/vote:
You are not logged in. To vote here on Wikimedia Meta-Wiki, you must use an account with at least 400 contributions before 00:00, 1 August 2006, and with a first edit before 00:00, 3 May 2006.
--jason clark <jason@jclark.org>
[edit] The Gang of 500
joshd: "You can definately tell the "regulars" on Wikipedia. They're the ones who see themselves as the keepers of Wikipedia and delete your newly creates article without hesitation, or revert your changes and accuse you of vandalisation without even checking the changes you made." [3]
CafeCafe:
- I contributed 5 times to different Wikipedia articles. Every modification I made was deleted without any comment. The problem was that in all of my small modifications (a few sentences at most), I was absolutely sure to have the right cultural reference, everything was corrected (when I spotted the mistakes) but it was still removed in the end.
- I know there are a lot of people like me willing to help, but unless there is a real discussion behind, I won't waste my time to help anymore which is a sad thing. [4]
bowerbird: "i have felt that my contributions -- on topics where i do have expertise -- have been warped by people who merely want to "make it sound like an encyclopedia" without having any knowledge of the topic."[5]
Ian:
- I used to be one of the people making small but regular contributions ... but got fed up of the self-appointed officious jobsworths who would come along minutes later and revert your contribution or substantially modify it (so that it lost the important detail), in order that things would fit "their vision" for the sections they "patrol" and have "made their own". My time is too valuable to argue with these people, sit monitoring discussion pages, or fight for ages to wrestle control back (and in doing so become as bad as these people, if I were to end up spending my entire waking hours on Wikipedia as they appear to).
- I've also become annoyed with the behaviour of this perceived "inner circle" when it comes to current events and the "high and mighty" attitude they have to outsider contributors (not me in these cases).
- Wikipedia was good up until 12-18 months ago but lately it's become far too cliquey. Which scares a lot of knowledgeable would-be contributors off, because if we are to invest our valuable time contributing some expert knowledge on some subject, we want to know that our work will remain there for others, and not just keep getting reverted out in seconds by some control freak that knows nothing about the actual subject.
- Why am I taking the time to make this point here? Because your article proves the existance of this "inner gang" that I feel are actually holding Wikipedia back. To allow Wikipedia to grow and really pick the brains of the experts around the world, you need to do something to break up this inner gang and the mini empires they are building for themselves. [6]
While the study that you conducted was interesting and informative, one must keep in mind priorities when considering the future of Wikipedia. If it stopped adding content now and just focused on refining its format, Wikipedia would still arguably be the most comprehensive encyclopedia in the world. More importantly, however, insider editors focus a good deal on ensuring that articles are properly referenced, and other such factors of reliability. The major criticism outside of Wikipedia is not that it has too little information, but that the fact that anyone can make edits unregulated makes it unreliable.
I think that a policy that would increase the regulation of contributors would be a positive measure, because while the total growth of the encyclopedia might slow, its refinement in matters of structure would increase. I also suspect (pure speculation with this) that contributors who truly wish to add content would not be averse to some mandatory registration process, and that it might in fact increase their sense of investment and fellowship with the project. Fiction 06:38, 26 April 2008 (UTC)
Anonymous: "I've proposed the addition or deletion of a couple articles, cited Wikipedia policy (two or three points in each case) and have been told point blank that I am wrong and that "the other editors would agree with" the editor I was arguing with. I may not spend 10 hours a day on the site or have thousands of edits under my belt, but this sort of treatment just left me with a bad taste in my mouth" [7]
Mediangler: "When I’ve done work on Wikipedia I’ve found my stuff deleted almost before I could save it - like there are culture vultures overlooking Wkidpedia waiting to kill anything that doesn’t fit the norm, as seen by an anonymous army of correctional knowledge workers. That’s my worry. That’s a bigger worry than the enemy you know." [8]
What seems like "Entrenched editors controlling an article" is often just vandal-fighters making mistakes -- it's easy to see what percentage of vandalism gets through, but the percentage of good content marked as vandalism is harder to pinpoint. There's a very big communication problem here (one that stable versions will hopefully make moot). Tlogmer 01:51, 6 September 2006 (UTC)
[edit] Other languages
[edit] Context
You sort of set Jimbo up as a straw man here. As I'm sure you know from his recent comments/press releases regarding the new German "Approved" version system, Jimbo absolutely agrees that keeping the barrier to entry low, and in fact lowering it, is key to Wikipedia's future. His comments about community were formulated to combat a specific line of Wikipedia criticism, essentially that "the wisdom of crowds" is not something that produces reliable information, considering how misinformed many people are. The community aspect, the vigilant work of the hundreds or thousands who make 75% of the edits, is why that doesn't happen. But that does not mean Jimbo undervalues the contributions of anons and low-edit contributors.
Your trial statistics are compelling (mainly because they are believable, based on my experience), but placing equal weight on every article or every word may be just as misleading as Jimbo's method (equal weight for every edit). Focusing on Featured Articles, Good Articles, most-viewed articles, or even in-line citations might give better results in terms of the head and tail of who is writing Wikipedia. You don't need to be a deletionist to think that a paragraph added to "Corinthian War" is a more significant addition to the 'pedia than a plot summary for the SpongeBob episode "Have You Seen This Snail? (Where's Gary?)".--Ragesoss 15:45, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- I wasn't trying to criticize Jimbo; I was trying to discuss how Wikipedia gets written. Jimbo just happens to be the most prominent proponent of a theory on the subject. AaronSw 15:57, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
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- Your piece makes it seem like Jimbo and (and perhaps "the community" as well) don't value open-ness highly enough, and that Wikipedia is or has been heading in the wrong direction because of it. The measurement issue is, at least implicitly, a determinant of policy. But in terms of policy, Jimbo and most of the community are probably pretty close to you regarding the desirability of open-ness and ease of contribution. I like your platform, especially your viewpoint on the role of the software environment in creating the right kind of social environment. But if this article is about policy, you're setting up a straw man. If this is about measurement, as I said above, it has merit, but also perhaps some flaws in terms of getting a satisfying answer to "Who Writes Wikipedia?"--Ragesoss 16:25, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
- Featured Articles or Good Articles on en: are hopelessly skewed to those with the patience to persist with particularly stupid wiki politics, so may not be a good measure - David Gerard 13:32, 5 September 2006 (UTC)
