Wikipedia talk:Wikipedia Signpost/2011-08-08/In the news

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Ref types, old and new

I share the interest in "When Knowledge Isn’t Written, Does It Still Count?" (WKIW ??). I think this is important for WP, and/but i am toying with the concept of an en.WikiOR, perhaps conceived as an appendix to en.WP; that might be the interim way (today? our second decade?) to "catch this wave" while we hash out policies for e.g. templates that paint paragraphs yellow to indicate they're an exception to WP:OR. Is this where we start discussing the issue as opposed to the article? Should it go immediately onto VP?
--Jerzy•t 19:17, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There is some discussion at m:Research_talk:Oral_Citations. Calliopejen1 (talk) 00:57, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

The project on oral citations reminds me of a type of reference that could be novel: the text of historical markers, photos of which can be shown simply via a click-through from the citation. Right now if you cited one with a <ref> element, dullards would accuse you of malpractice. But there's actually nothing wrong with it. The text of historical markers tend to be a highly vetted and pretty reliable source (WP:RS). — ¾-10 03:49, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Text of markers and labels is, indeed, verifiable, and has been used in the past. Rich Farmbrough, 12:56, 10 August 2011 (UTC).[reply]

Contributorship

The article contains the rather dubious assertion that "Mr Wales revealed that he plans to double the number of people actively editing the site's pages within a year", probably a misquote, but also . [sic]—What happened at the end there? howcheng {chat} 23:35, 8 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Regarding contributor decline a friend of mine recently joined Wikipedia for the first time. Lacking auto patrol his first article (on a secondary school) came under sustained deletionist attack and although the article survived he gave up contributing afterwards saying it was too much hassle. If Jimbo is going to find new editors we need to make this place a little more welcoming first! Francium12 00:20, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think it's worth throwing (divisive) terms like "deletionist" around. The simple, clear fact is that people that start out by contributing new articles tend to get their hands burnt. Either we need to relax the existing consensus on speedy deletion, or we need to discourage article creation in mainspace. Probably the latter IMHO. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:44, 9 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I don't think you can discount wikiphilosophy entirely on this point. It definitely affects how people approach this. Being an incrementalist and eventualist, I'd vote for the former rather than the latter. I think the latter is a step toward killing the incentive for new editors to start contributing to Wikipedia. I even view it as a latent form of newbie-biting in itself. It implicitly says, "Your new article about secondary school XYZ is worthless to us. Go away." Bad idea, IMO, and deletionist and immediatist. Kills the community and the potential of what Wikipedia can eventually become (i.e., evolve into). — ¾-10 03:58, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

That's an odd attitude to have, Jarry1250 -- "people that start out by contributing new articles tend to get their hands burnt". If I had gotten my hands burnt when I started, I doubt I'd still be contributing eight and a-half years later. And from discussions I've had with a number of non-Wikipedians, I've received anecdotal evidence that confirm Francium12's story. Most people who get their hands burnt never go any further with Wikipedia, & many of them form a hostile opinion of it, & the community around it. -- llywrch (talk) 04:51, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

I think you may have misunderstood what I was saying...? I meant that the answer to the question "Where should I start?" should not be article creation, because starting there results in a lot of burnt hands and therefore a lot of potential contributors driven away (I was agreeing on this point). Much better to start on something of lower stakes (editing existing articles) and working up. - Jarry1250 ^{[Weasel? Discuss.]} 11:36, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Because of our rules, we basically don't let newbies create lasting articles. We should probably stop pretending that we do, and make them edit a certain number of times first.- Peregrine Fisher (talk) 20:26, 10 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Perhaps seasoned editors could actually sit down and make in-depth, carefully considered, additive contributions to the corpus, working in better collaboration with newbies, in subjective distinction to their addictive policing habits.FeatherPluma (talk) 05:22, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Correction

The Jewish Chronicle is not an Israeli newspaper, but rather a British one. It is indeed Jewish, pertaining to the British-Jewish community, and it is considered pro-Israel, and yet it is not Israeli. 79.182.96.139 (talk) 04:24, 14 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]

Well spotted, I've removed that description. Robofish (talk) 21:19, 15 August 2011 (UTC)[reply]