atw: Re: One more time , for the doubters

From: "Anthony Self" <ASelf@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
To: <austechwriter@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 01 Sep 2011 10:24:52 +1000
Hi Geoff

I think we are making progress, other than I still can't get you to read
the Wikipedia editorial policies for yourself. But, I am still very
happy to look it up for you and share the knowledge.

Featured Article reviewers volunteer to be reviewers. There is no
specific criteria for being a reviewer, other than being a registered
user. The process for the English language Wikipedia is coordinated by
Mark Pellegrini, the FA Director. Experienced reviewers teach new
reviewers about the strict reviewing guidelines, and about the
critiquing process. Some reviewers will only review topics they have
subject matter expertise in, while others will review a range of topics,
but focus on subsets of FA criteria, such as copyright. (One of the FA
criteria is that images and media have acceptable copyright status.) 

To give you an idea, I looked through some of the current FA candidates.
The "Pepper v Hart" article is one. It has been nominated twice before,
but knocked back on each occasion. The nominator is a jurist in real
life. Reviewers include specialised editors (one has made 60,000 edits
to Wikipedia articles, another 90,000) and law academics. The review has
just really begun for this article.

I am sure you will have an objection to this process (in fact, I'm sure
you had an objection to the process before you knew what it was!). Most
of your arguments have been based on assumptions about the process, but
you don't mention the outcome a lot. It's as though you're believing
that the reliability of the content must be rubbish because the process
can't possibly produce anything other than rubbish. Even if we overlook
the fact that every time we've examined an article in detail we have
found reliability (stub through to FA), the academic studies that have
been conducted show that the reliability of Wikipedia content is similar
to Britannica.

Your most recent assertion, which seems to be that because FA articles
are thoroughly checked and reviewed by an independent panel, all other
articles must be unchecked and unreviewed. (Even though I pointed out in
my last post that GA articles go through a similar peer review and QA
process to FA.) And then extended that further to claim that 99.9% of
articles were "not up to scratch". FA status is not the scratch mark. I
will again refer you to the Wikipedia policies on article status. Here
are the key points.

Stub - A very basic description of the topic. 
Start - An article in development, but incomplete and lacking adequate,
reliable sources. 
C - The article is substantial, but missing important content or
contains irrelevant material. 
B - The article is mostly complete and without major issues, but
requires some more work. 
A - The article is well-organized and complete, reviewed by impartial
reviewers from a WikiProject. 
GA - The article is well-written, factually accurate, broad in coverage,
neutral, stable, and illustrated. 
FA - The article is the best you can get. 
You started this thread by complaining that your students were all
referencing Wikipedia as though it was a reputable source. And that
there was a widespread acceptance of what Wikipedia says as being
"gospel". Now, you are saying there is widespread scepticism. So, which
one is it? 

I've been answering a lot of your questions. Can I get you to answer one
of mine? Which of the following do you agree with, if any?

>> Is Wikipedia reliable? Quite reliable; on a par with Britannica.
Is it crap? No.
Are there errors? Surprisingly few.
Does the ability for contributors to choose to be anonymous have an
effect on quality? Can't tell.
Is it perfect? Of course not.
Is it a useful resource? Hell yes.
Should educators provide better guidelines for using Wikipedia? Yes. 
<<


Cheers

Tony Self



>>> "Geoffrey Marnell" 01/09/11 8:37 AM >>>

Thanks for the long explanation, but I think we are going round in
circles. You wrote:

*The article then gets reviewed by an expert panel of volunteers [before
it can get a FA status]*

But how are these experts chosen? Isn*t this primarily what we have been
debating for weeks now?

And if only 0.1% of Wikipedia articles have been *reviewed by an expert
panel [and granted FA status]*, doesn*t that explain why, nay justify,
widespread scepticism. You are, are you not, telling us that 99.9% of
articles are, in some ways, not up to scratch (in the sense of being
either untested by other contributors or tested but found wanting)?

Cheers

Geoffrey Marnell
Principal Consultant
Abelard Consulting Pty Ltd
T: +61 3 9596 3456
F: +61 3 9596 3625
M: 0419 574 668
W: www.abelard.com.au

Skype: geoffrey.marnell
atw: Re: One more time , for the doubters

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