Whatever

I guess the only information that wants to be free is information other people control.

Lovely.

I was looking at entry on one of CJ Cherryh's books today and wondering if I should try and fix it. But the more I hear about editing Wikipedia the less I want to do with it.

The entry now shows his death on June 29, 2007.

Well, good. Let's see for how long that sticks.

heh, gone now.

Oddly enough, I just started reading my very first Saberhagen book the other day. I'm rather enjoying Berserker.

I thought it rather odd that in order for the SFWA to be a reliable source, they must put info on their front page. Also, I saw no "links" proving Saberhagen's birth either. Perhaps his birth was faked as well.

Done again. I can revert his edits all damn night if need be.

Two completely unrelated things, stuck here 'cause I couldn't find a better place:

1) John, your posts are coming up in my RSS reader as authored by 'anonymous'... apologies if I'm the 3,465th person to point this out, or if you DGARA.

2) Have you been pointed to Bologna Cat yet?

For some people, Ellison is just that guy mentioned at the end of the Babylon 5 credits.

Obviously, Wikipedia has had a lot of trouble with spurious updates by essentially unknown (in the "you can verify they exist and they are who they are" variety) people. The purpose of the reliable sources doc is to make it easy for random strangers to verify entries.

This is one of the inherent weaknesses of the Wikipedia model. Traditional encyclopedias often have sections written and/or edited by authors (or committees) that make it their business to be somewhat informed about the specific subject matter.

The Wikipedia model means relying on a loose cadre of people sifting through mountains of updates, many of them complete garbage, looking for real, verifiable facts on subjects they may have little understanding of.

At least this dude took your rather spirited objections in stride.

I'm not surprised that this person rejected the edits out of hand for not qualifying as verifiable (based on the document tiresomely provided over and over). I imagine that /any/ doubt at all about the verifiable fact of a specific person's death is probably taken pretty seriously. It was all too easy to spread the rumour of death via an entry in the bad old days.

I mean, look at it from another angle: if this editor has no direct knowledge of fandom (what a word!), Ellison (dropped as a name like it means something to the greater masses of people out there!) or the SFWA (the what with the who now?) then your comments could end up sounding like any hysterical assertion. I mean, who is this Ellison guy you keep going about? Anyone can create a web presence that asserts some fact.

At least, this is the sort of the conservative editing you find now that Wikipedia is /trying/ (with mixed results) to be a lot more critical of the sources of their information.

All they have to go, then, on is their "reliable sources" doc.

And remember: this is Wikipedia. Isn't the flamewar over boat anchors /still/ going on?

Was reverted but I just fixed it. Interesting to see how long it lasts.

Chances are the news will hit somewhere else soon, and that will be the end of it. Still, I'll grant you that it's a foolishly narrow interpretation of "WP:RS" (the Wikipedia rule about reliable sources), since Harlan can reasonably be deemed an expert in the field of well known sf writers and whether or not they're dead.

Love your new user page, by the way. I am amused.

Mark Kelly over at www.locusmag.com has also posted the sad news. He also notes:

The family will announce a date for a Memorial Celebration later this year. Donations would be appreciated to Doctors without Borders, Catholic Relief, SFWA Emergency Medical Fund, and John 23rd Catholic Church in Albuquerque.

Well... all the Wikidiocy aside...

It's sad to hear of Mr. Saberhagen's passing. R.I.P.

I think I'll pull one of his paperbacks off the shelf and enjoy his visions this eve.

I gotta side with Quatloo on this one, despite that being about the nerdiest handle ever. The site is WikiPedia, not WikiBreakingNews. It looks like they've selected ISFDB as their reliable Internet source for SF information.

I tried re-adding with a reference to Locus Magazines posting. Hopefully that sticks.

I do understand the policy of not letting unsourced information be added to biographies of living persons, but the individual seems to be taking a bit too much glee in doing so. And while I know that Harlan Ellison and Wikipedia aren't best buddies, I don't see why he wouldn't be a valid source.

More importantly, I'm sorry to hear of Mr. Saberhagen's passing.

I thoroughly enjoyed his Beserker works, and some of his lesser known writing.

I read Veils of Azlaroc as a teen and felt that most of it went over my head. I've always meant to reread it as an adult and now I will finally get around to it.

You'll be missed.

.

And yet WikiPedia frequently acts as WikiBreakingNews when any news event occurs or when the ColbertNation gets called up to action. Perhaps they are still a tad touchy after pre-announcing Chris Benoit's wifes death last week (14 hours before she was murdered).

(looks like entry has been updated again with the locusmag reference)

I called down the admins to lock it.

That should hold things off until an obituary or something surfaces somewhere.

I have to say I agree that Quatloo took your profound quantity of "spirited objections" rather well. I say this in as professional a manner as blog commentary can afford, but it seemed overboard to me, Scalzi.

I greatly enjoyed a lot of Saberhagen's work. I particularly liked his revisionist Dracula series, although it was starting to get a bit thin as the sequels rolled on. But that is almost ineivtable with sequels.

OTOH, His book "Love Conquers All" is best avoided, IMHO.

Subspace:

If by "handling it well" you mean "exhibiting an absolute inability to think beyond a poorly-designed Wikipedia policy," yes, he did fine.

I was a Wikipedia contributor for about a year. (I wrote the early major drafts of a bunch of entries for major superheroes, for instance.)

I stopped contributing when I learned that the Wikipedia's moderators are completely ineffectual at, well, moderating. Not only that, they're amazingly slow at failing to moderate, and astoundingly uncommunicative if you try to speed things up.

So yeah, basically unless you have a lot of time and patience, the inmates mostly run the asylum over there. Fortunately there are a bunch of level-headed people who do have the time and patience, which is why it's still a useful resource, but contributing was just too frustrating for me to keep wasting my time on it.

My comment wasn't in reference to Quatloo's opinion on the facts, Scalzi, it was in reference to your usage of insults to convey passion.

Also, are we sure Qualtoo is male?

Wikipedia is a great idea. The basic concept is terrific. Jimmy Wales is vouched for by Cory Doctorow, who is one of my best friends and one of the people who I admire most in the world.

And stuff like this makes me want to rip somebody's head off.

What neither Jimmy Wales nor anyone else owns up to is the sheer exhausting corrosiveness of having to fight with obvious psychopaths like "Quatloo". I've joked that Wikipedia's tagline ought to be "The online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, so long as they're willing to devote hundreds of hours of energy to fighting people with autistically long attention spans." Until Wikipedia can figure out some way of reigning in the rule of its Red Guards, it's going to be repellent to an enormous swathe of humanity: the people who are put off by authoritarian pricks.

If you want the genuine output of the whole world's input, you need to stop empowering the volunteer hall monitors over every other kind of human. Jimmy Wales needs to put that in his pipe and smoke it.

I'm tired of hearing that the inside-crowd of sensible Wikipedia administrators agrees that these things are problems and hopes to address them. Either fix it or decide that you like things the way they are. The latter is what your behavior defaults to, and you can't have it both ways.

Subspace:

I don't recall insulting Quatloo. Calling someone a goddamn fool if they don't recognize that Harlan Ellison is a reliable source in this particular context is simply a statement of fact. Also, I wasn't being passionate, I was being irritated.

It's true I'm assuming Quatloo is a he. Quatloo could be a she.

This just basically reinforces that wiki is useless as a reliable source for anything that is either:

a: the slightest bit controversial (usually in a political sense)
b: recent

It's really good for stuff that's neither of the above.

I suspect that you could probably derive a general rule that in any given online community the percentage of trolls and/or pricks will be fairly constant. I know I've found it so going as far back as FIDONET in the 80s and usenet in the 90s.

Calling someone a goddamn fool if they don't recognize that Harlan Ellison is a reliable source in this particular context is simply a statement of fact.

Sorry, John, but that's actually an opinion.

Saying that "Harlan Ellison [or anyone else] is a reliable source" may arguably be a statement of fact, but saying that someone is a "goddamn fool" for failing to recognize this is clearly an opinion. A defensible opinion, perhaps, but an opinion nonetheless.

Hugh57:

"Sorry, John, but that's actually an opinion."

Come on, Hugh. I don't really need to put subtitles under my snark on my own site, do I?

I was going to respond to that comment as well until I realized where I was.

Not to be a grammar nazi but...

some git who does not think Harlan Ellison is not a sufficiently reliable source for this information.

...I think you mean "...does not think Harlan Ellison is a sufficiently reliable source for this information."

With any luck, it will take less time for you to make that change (unless I'm missing something) over here than it will for wikipedia to register the info you passed along.

Sorry about that, John. Unlike Subspace, I forgot where I was. I've been reading your blog long enough that I should have recognized your distinctive brand of snark when I came across it. :)

It's just that people confusing opinion with fact are a pet peeve of mine, one I encounter almost daily with people who aren't being snarky.

As with any large community endeavor, change comes slowly, and well-planned and organized, well-thought-out change even slower. It gets worse when there aren't enough people to execute the change, and worse still when those people are volunteers who also have lives and day jobs. As in all things, patience is a virtue.

Quatloo backed off as soon as the Locus announcement surfaced. That's all he wanted to see. If everyone had simply waited for an hour or two for proper references to appear that could be cited, it wouldn't've turned into an edit war. It's an encyclopedia, not a news outlet. The inclusion of his date of death in the article wasn't urgent.

Meanwhile, Wikipedia has a whole slew of IRC chat channels on freenode.net, if people need to get hold of admin attention quickly for something. The people who hang out in them are friendly and helpful.

MWT:

"Quatloo backed off as soon as the Locus announcement surfaced. That's all he wanted to see."

But he also declared that he didn't care how Locus got the information, which I find really problematic. I'd be willing to bet a sum larger than a nickel that Locus got its information from exactly the same place I did -- either the SFWA announcement or from Harlan Ellison's site. He's more interested in sourcing than actual useful data. I understand why Wikipedia wants verifiable sources, of course; I also think Wikipedia needs to be flexible enough take information from credible sources even if they are not a newspaper or magazine.

Actually, I think many of the editors do have that flexibility. Certainly the admins, at least, have been good about doing more than the most superficial Google search when they're digging up verification about something (of the ones I've observed closely).

Quatloo doesn't speak for all of Wikipedia. It's kind of hidden, but notice on the talk page where Chronodm said "Really? To quote WP:PSTS: "Primary sources are documents or people very close to the situation being written about." (Emphasis added.)" With a bit of patience, someone else with knowledge of Wikipedia procedure came along to refute him in a far more effective way than you were doing.

MWT:

"With a bit of patience, someone else with knowledge of Wikipedia procedure came along to refute him in a far more effective way than you were doing."

Well, this assumes that Quatloo would pull his head out enough to acknowledge the notation; it came after the Locus reference was noted and he hasn't responded to it. So it's being more effective is speculation. However, it does establish that Quatloo, for all his officiousness, didn't know what he was talking about. I find that heartening; I wish it had happened earlier.

As a passerby, from your first response to him you came across as someone who felt that their change should be taken because they knew it was true. His first statement is simply requiring a *checkable* reference. It looks to me like you didn't provide a link to the announcement, I think because you must be a member of the association to see the page it's on? Anyway, your first response was IMO incredibly harsh, you attacked his comprehension and then backed up the reference by stating *you'd* seen it with your own eyes.

I know your intent was to insist that you'd provided suitable sources, but you have to wade through a bit too much hostility to get to it. Infact, if I'm reading this page correctly, you never linked to a source, even though Quatloo was (rightly) making it clear that's what was necessary.

From what I've seen of you by reading this blog and how you handle your own dissenters, I'm actually a little surprised. Not that my opinion of you actually matters in any way except to show that I'm not just some stranger taking you to task for abusing some "poor" wikipedia admin. I imagine once tempers have cooled you'll be able to look back and realize where the miscommunication happened and why.

I also agree with the others who are commenting on Quatloo's handling of himself (herself?) I've been in less significant dustups with admins than that and OH BOY did they go bad... horribly horribly bad. Long story, can't really recap it in the space I have left, without turning this into *my* blog. Just... it was BAD. This was all shades of frustrating, but tame.

Majken:

"I imagine once tempers have cooled you'll be able to look back and realize where the miscommunication happened and why."

Are you folks under the impression that I'm enraged? No. I thought the initial deletion was spurious; I sourced the information, noting where I found it and what it said. He deleted it because he couldn't find it, but it didn't appear he looked very hard (he only referenced looking at the first page). I gave him an alternate and credible reference; he decided (erroneously, it appears) that it wasn't credible, and later tried to school me in sourcing, which, well, I find amusing.

In short, I think I treated him about as well as he deserved all the way through, and I did it without any particular rage; which is to say I was deliberately condescending. You're of course free to think I was rude or unduly harsh, but I don't particularly care one way or another. I don't claim to be nice all the time.

A quick scan of the SFWA site also brings sad news of the death of Sterling E. Lanier, author of Heiro's Journey and The Unforsaken Heiro.

To be fair to Quatloo, I had trouble finding your sources too. It would've been a lot faster had you linked to the specific part of SFWA that you were referring to, or to Harlan Ellison's forum. In fact I never did find where it said what you said got said on SFWA; not being familiar with the site's layout and having no clue where to look, I eventually gave up and just did Google searches hoping to find Harlan Ellison's board instead, which also took several tries. In the process I also went past Saberhagen's official website, which did not have a note about his death (and it seems to me that making sure Wikipedia notes it ought not to be so urgent if his own website hadn't yet).

Also, Majken: I don't think Quatloo is an admin. He's just another random editor on equal footing as everyone else. That seems to escape a lot of people who aren't familiar with the community - that by and large, the other editors are not special. The people who put up officious looking tags are just regular people too, and you have equal authority to take them back down if they happen to be pointless.

That said, though, it does help to work with the community and learn its ways of doing things. As with any community. I'll be the first to agree that the procedure pages can be complex and convoluted, which could definitely use some streamlining, but they are there to be perused and despite poor organization they still aren't rocket science.

MWT:

"To be fair to Quatloo, I had trouble finding your sources too."

Fair enough. I'll try to do a better job of that in the future.

John;

You don't know me, but we've met a time or two(however, I've surely just been one of the geeks in the crowd).

I know that it's frustrating, and frankly, Quatloo is being a complete freaking ass there (I imagine him saying GO NO FURTHER! in a robotic voice).

The problem is this - many of the editors at Wikipedia believe that:
a) a reliable source such as CNN or Locus will make the confirmations for them
b) if it turns out that they're wrong, but they're just reporting what a reliable source said, they're not liable

I've worked as a journalist, you've worked as a journalist, and we both know those things aren't true. But with half a million editors, its better to insist that everything has to be cited by news organizations, schools, etc. Blogs, regardless of the person who writes them, are still essentially self-publication. I believe we miss out on a lot of things that could be of use to us because we don't link to blogs, be they those of science fiction writers or nanotechnology experts (I found some great stuff about some things going to a juried reading last week, but until that jurying happens, doesn't matter for Wikipedia).

Now, secondly, Wikipedia is reeling right now because of all the coverage last week over the Benoit case. I wrote the Wikipedia Signpost article on it, and there's a lot of reason for them to be reeeeeeeealy touchy right now; for a while it looked like they might need to provide records so a court order could be obtained from an ISP to identify an IP editor. The site is being watched quite a bit, by some of the most insane people on the planet:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/2007-07-02/Wrestler_death

Check the 5th paragraph out; and I only went for the big guns, whose transcripts I can easily get - I have about 30 links to major news columnists DEMANDING THE TRUTH! (which was exactly what the more experienced editors and admins thought it was as soon as it got mentioned on the Admin Noticeboard, but you can't howl for someone's head if it's that simple).

Unfortunately, the timing on this means there's a shitload of editors who are keeping close watch on any declaration of death, and not going to let it stand without the most reliable sources they can find, which they believe can be had by avoiding blogs, even if the information there is correct and timely.

this is a reply to Patrick Nielsen Hayden:

I'm tired of hearing that the inside-crowd of sensible Wikipedia administrators agrees that these things are problems and hopes to address them. Either fix it or decide that you like things the way they are. The latter is what your behavior defaults to, and you can't have it both ways.

One of the biggest issues is there's no system in place for *de-admining* someone; once you have the admin bit, you're golden. Until you do something astonishingly horrific. This seems incorrect to me; there should absolutely be a way of taking their toys away.

I'm also of the opinion there should be a non-removable infobox on everyone's page, and everytime they fight a consensus based on rules and lose (ie, it gets taken to the Admin Noticeboard), and every time they get chastised in an RfC, it should be noted there. There are a number of editors and admins who do not seem to realize that if they piss someone off every month so much that it gets taken to RfC, and every month they're told, 'You broke WP:CIVIL, you violated WP:BITE (don't bite the newbies), etc., there should be consequences, because right now, there aren't.

On Wikipedia, your reputation is all you have; are you a good editor or a bad one? Do you interpret rules well and fairly, or are you rules lawyering? A permanent record on your userpage of all the times you've messed up would act as a shorthand to people to assess just how well you're taking the spirit of Wikipedia to heart, over taking the rules to...well, wherever you take rules to.

Officious pricks are definitely a real problem for wikipedia, but the sky doesn't seem to me to be falling.. And I'm not sure there are any technical solutions to this problem that don't throw out the baby with the bathwater.

Wikipedian officious prick frequency aside, let me simply note that although idiocy slowed down the process greatly (and made it more stressful) the article DOES now note Mr. Saberhagen's death, and the lag time was only an additional 4 hours. (Unless I am reading the history logs incorrectly.)

And let me just call bullshit on anyone who says that wikipedia isn't the most amazingly useful reference source ever in the history of the world. Because it is. The sheer breadth and depth of it qualifies it as that, and the error rate as measured by Science magazine (or possibly Nature?) was only slightly worse than Britannica. And on top of that, it's FREE. Yes, you should absolutely get another independent source before you trust any fact completely. That is true (as repeatedly noted above) of absolutely any source. Just because wikipedia isn't a shining example of perfection doesn't mean it's not the best thing available, or indeed ever. It could be better, it's true. But there is nothing better available, and it behooves us to remember that.

I also find it deeply regrettable that this stupid kerfluffle is shamefully dominating remembrance of Fred Saberhagen, whom I quite enjoyed as an author. I'll miss him.

"Wikipedia Officious Prick Brigade". I love it.

I'm relieved to see my edit seemed to stop the deletions. Also glad I got it in before the article was locked (it was hard work, every time I hit save the page had been edited at least once).

Adding a citation mid-edit war requires some quick fingers.

I'm certainly not saying Wikipedia isn't amazing. I use it at least a dozen times a day, and I'm pretty confident in my ability to distinguish the reliable stuff from the less so.

What I'm saying is that Wikipedia in its current condition drives away people who lack unlimited patience for dealing with a certain kind of officiousness. Indeed, it's a subculture that positively encourages people to behave like parking-lot lawyers. Perhaps that's fine, and down the line we'll all realize that Wikipedia is the optimal outlet for the energy of nature's born hall monitors. But it's a choice. Wikipedia is choosing: it prefers the Quatloos of the world to the John Scalzis. Let's hope this turns out to be a good choice. I have my doubts.

Fred Saberhagen's passing is sad news for interstellar killing machines everywhere.
As for Wikipedia, I've had my own problems trying to update some information on it where I was the authority, but still could find no way to update the information myself. My current opinion was summed up by the ever excellent Wondermark strip,
http://wondermark.blogspot.com/2007/04/291-in-which-notability-is-determined.html

Excellent. This gives me the perfect place to point to when I am inevitably told that "If you think something's wrong with Wikipedia, the solution is to FIX IT!!!"

I'm sorry you had to put up with the Wikitwit. :-/

By and large, I quite like Wikipedia.

However, there is a serious element of One True Wayism that runs through most of its articles on cultural/fictional stuff. (And for all I know the rest of it, however, I've only tried editing cultural/fictional stuff.)

For instance, "warp fields," "warp engines," and/or "warp space," to most people, are science fiction concepts, not topics in theoretical physics. However, any attempt to write articles on these subjects is quickly deleted or, at best, inserted into an article on "Alcubierre drive." All props to Mr. Alcubierre, but come on.

I only edit Wikipedia for typos and blatant mistakes at this point. I won't be writing any articles or adding to any existing articles. Frankly, they care more than I do. I don't have much of a life, but it's more than some, apparently.

M

I also edited Fred's Wikipedia site twice yesterday, only to find some of what I wrote deleted.

It's nuts - I sign anything I edit on Wikipedia, and I've had an account on Wikipedia for years. The first time, I forgot to add a link back to the SFF.NET obits, found my edit deleted and re-edited it to include a link back to the SFF.NET obits discussion list.

Now, the listing I added to June 2007 deaths HAS "stayed put."

Wikipedia has been, in the past, a bad source of current information. But I think anyone willing to edit under their own names should be given a little slack.

One weird thing on Fred's death - no newspaper in Albuquerque has an obit for him yet. That's curious. So if they're now using a newspaper as the final arbitor, well...In this case, they'd be wrong.

Piers Anthony once wrote a bio of Stephen R. Donaldson on his site that described how he'd gone to prison and been raped repeatedly.

Sci-fi authors get nutty when they get old, and I wouldn't trust Ellison, either.

Three Oranges:

"Sci-fi authors get nutty when they get old, and I wouldn't trust Ellison, either."

I would suggest there's a difference between PA suggesting prison rape for one of his contemporaries, and Ellison's acknowledgment that a friend of his had died.

John:
Maybe. Maybe not. I don't know anything about Ellison and his relationship with Saberhagen.

You can't fault Wikipedia for applying some basic standards, such as not reporting news from one source as fact. If Harlan Ellison called up the New York Times and told the editor "Fred Saberhagen is dead!" do you think they'd just run the story without doing a little checking?

Give 'em hell, John.

One interesting thing that I found was that Quatloo makes mention of the fact that you aren't patient enough to let news of Fred's death show up on a "reliable source" yet he could've let the edit remain for a few hours to see if it showed up on a "reliable source".

I just can't believe how much time he spent fighting you on the issue.

I went back to make some comments on the way the Saberhagen page has been re-edited, and you can't even edit the meta-discussion now!!

I also tried to find out how to lodge a complaint against the "Q-ster," and can't figure out how to do that. That anonymous twit definitely stepped way over several lines.

Trolls are everywhere. I learned the hard way that the secret to defeating them is not to give in to their pandering ways. They deliberately post inflammatory and condescending comments to push your buttons so they can invoke the commonly-used "Straw Man Arguement" to prove their point.

After reading the tripe that idiot posted all over Wiki, it appears he/she/it was successful in pushing your buttons. Additionally, Wiki is far from "a reliable source" for *anything*, since it can be changed and edited on a whim.

Your best bet would have been to go to, say, CNN or MSNBC, or some other website, and just let that troll lurk under it's bridge.

What neither Jimmy Wales nor anyone else owns up to is the sheer exhausting corrosiveness of having to fight with obvious psychopaths like "Quatloo". I've joked that Wikipedia's tagline ought to be "The online encyclopedia that anyone can edit, so long as they're willing to devote hundreds of hours of energy to fighting people with autistically long attention spans." Until Wikipedia can figure out some way of reigning in the rule of its Red Guards, it's going to be repellent to an enormous swathe of humanity: the people who are put off by authoritarian pricks.

Two reasons why this is not going to change soon:

1) Wikipedia is a dictatorship run ultimately by Jimbo Wales
2) Wales is some variety of libertarian/Randroid.

If he notices a problem, anything must be done to solve it, up to and including breaking Wikipedia's own rules But apart from that, "consensus" is the order of the day, no matter how stupid.

Like every other great institution, Wikipedia reflects the biases and beliefs of its original creators/early adaptors, even though these are more broke than right by now.

Just put his bio info up on www.antiwikipedia.com
We won't delete it.

I got word of Fred's passing on Friday, about two hours after he died. I was asked to hold off on announcing at the request of the family so the family would have time to mourn in private. I was given permission on Monday, at which time I e-mailed to SF groups I run, e-mailed SF Signal and e-mailed Locus.

Wikipedia is managed by a bunch of self important twats. I love the concept, but the admins have ruined the site for me.

I'm sure it was frustrating, the more so because of the subject, but I just want to say thanks because that exchange was all kinds of funny.

See? Now *that's* snark (especially the Wikipedia transcript itself). Maybe you should send a pointer to Myers so he can do better next time.

Eeek! This article just went green on Fark. I hope the new version of MT can handle the load.

/Shut down the garbage mashers on the dentention level!
//SHUT THEM ALL DOWN!

O.K., I read the comments ("discussion"). So it appears that neither I or a friend who got the word from the family is not a good enough source for Wikipedia? Would the family be a good enough source if one of them got logged in at Wikipedia and made a change?

Why is Locus "good enough" when (if you saw my e-mail and the e-mail of a friend) it is clear that they got their news from the two of us? Heck, my friend is the one who told Harlan...and she was present during Fred's passing...so again, her word isn't good enough for Wikipedia?

My head is spinning...

Really. It's spinning. I feel like I'm in "The Exorcist"!

I started a discussion on Wikipedia about this here.

I suppose if I were employed, I'd probably not bother, but I'm unemployed so I have way too much time on my hands... ;->

Umm, waiting for verification /= officious.
Reading the entire back-and-forth between Scalsi and Quatloo, I have to say Scalzi is the one who comes off as the a-hole.

1991? I started work as a reporter 23 years before you did and we would never take the word of "friend who got word from the family" as the source. When the "friend" told us we would then call the family ourselves.

"A friend who got word from the family" is a phrase that can be typed by anyone sitting at a computer.

Fred:
It's really simple.

Nobody knows who you are. At least, nobody outside whatever little part of the sci-fi world you inhabit.

From Wikipedia's perspective, you could be anyone, so your report is not good enough. Locus, however, has the specialized knowledge needed to evaluate your statements. Once they've passed that level of scrutiny, and are published by a respected source in the sci-fi community, it makes sense for your news to be posted on Wikipedia. Not before.

I'm sorry that you've been denied the Internet prestige of being the first to report on someone's death, but Wikipedia has other priorities.

Wikipedia's been stung several times recently by people inserting "so-and-so is dead" into articles as a lark; Dave Grohl (http://www.postchronicle.com/cgi-bin/artman/exec/view.cgi?archive=8&num=63673 - apologies, my HTML-fu is weak) and Sinbad {http://www.itwire.com.au/content/view/10520/1103/} have both been whacked prematurely by vandals and got a lot of press because of it. Understandable, I think, that there would be some close scrutiny with any famous person being declared dead. I haven't reviewed the whole situation with this incident, but it sounds like someone was just following the verifiability (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WP:V) policy, which calls for multiple independent reliable sources. I might have considered the Harlan Ellison statement as a good one myself, but generally most editors want to see a couple of mentions in publications that have an editorial oversight of some sort.

Scalzi stated on wikipedia "It suggests you don't actually care if the material is true, merely that it's sourced."

As crazy as it sounds,that is exactly wikipedia's motto. "The threshold for inclusion in Wikipedia is verifiability, NOT TRUTH."

Speaker2Animals:

"1991? I started work as a reporter 23 years before you did and we would never take the word of 'friend who got word from the family' as the source. When the 'friend' told us we would then call the family ourselves."

However, in this case, Harlan got the information from someone entrusted by the family to be a spokesperson, and on Harlan's site that person posted directly to Harlan's site as well. Newspapers take statements from family spokespeople all the time.

Yeah, I was just going to point out that the talk page got Farked.

Martin Wisse's comments notwithstanding, my own experiences with Jimmy Wales (as a spectator to other people's more direct interactions) incline me to think he's a thoughtful and kindly individual. He certainly doesn't strike me as a dogmatic "libertarian/Randroid." I dunno, maybe he has a copy of Atlas Shrugged mounted on an altar in his living room, but in my experience real Randroids have a distinctive flavor of craziness which I don't detect in Jimmy Wales.

So for all my criticisms of Wikipedia, I don't think its problems stem from some character flaw at the heart of its creator, as Martin seems to be suggesting. Quite the contrary, Wales seems to me a pleasant and sensible guy, which suggests that the problems in question are emergent properties of design flaws rather than the results of individual moral failures.

In a real sense, there's a bigger argument than "Wikipedia: GOOD!? or BAD!?", and that argument is about whether it's possible (and/or desirable) to design social systems with an eye toward maximizing human fulfillment and minimizing misery. The basic "conservative" mindset says that this is a fool's errand more likely to produce perverse effects than not. The basic liberal mindset says, no, all social systems are to some extent designed; let's try designing them for the benefit of all rather than for the advantage of a few. Jimmy Wales, Martin Wisse, and I are all on the same side of that argument. Wikipedia is an experiment in design, and its failures are worth discussing as we move on to further experiments along similar lines.

Quatloo the wikipedian in question is an idiot.

I like the fact that "Three Oranges" starts his lecture by addressing it to "Fred".

Yo, Three: Fred is the guy who died.

It's this kind of attention to detail that impresses us all about the mental powers of bravely anonymous Wikipedians.

PNH:

Actually I think Three Oranges was responding to Fred Kiesche's comment.

There does seem to be an abundance of Freds today, living or not.

Scalzi: Newspapers take statements from family spokespeople all the time.

Yes, they'd publish on the basis of getting something from a family spokesman -- but not on getting it from someone who talked to the family spokesman. The difference is crucial, and getting information like this from just a person's website doesn't quite meet the standard of verification. Remember, Wiki got burned big time by the Siegenthaler episode. They've become a lot more cautious.

You may be interested in a quote I left on my Wikipedia user page after I finally gave up and left. It's from Asimov's Foundation when Salvor Hardin chastised the encyclopedists for their overall lack of vision:

"And you men and half of Terminus as well are just as bad. We sit here, considering the Encyclopedia the all-in-all. We consider the greatest end of science is the classification of past data. It is important, but is there no further work to be done? We're receding and forgetting, don't you see?"

Hi,
Thanks for pointing out all the Wikipedia nonsense yesterday. I was the origin of info about Fred to both Harlan and Locus. Being a close friend of the Saberhagens – Joan asked me to send out the info yesterday afternoon. I emailed Locus and posted on Harlan’s site at about the same time. A little later I emailed SFWA and posted to several groups along with calling/emailing friends of theirs. I noticed that Wikipedia had been updated (which I was glad to see) then pulled (which was frustrating). I tried to figure out some way to remedy the situation but figured once my friends here in New Mexico (like Walter Jon Williams and Melinda Snodgrass) started posting and it hit Locus (and many of the folks at Locus know me) it would work itself out. Sigh. I can understand Wikipedia's caution (I could be some nutcase) but I did not know how to prove my veracity except for just waiting.
Thanks for trying to update Wikipedia and for sharing in my frustration.
Best,
-Patricia Rogers

Speaker2Animals:

"Remember, Wiki got burned big time by the Siegenthaler episode. They've become a lot more cautious."

Fair enough. This does come hard on an embarrassment, although the particulars are sufficiently different.

Patricia:

You're welcome. Eventually the information stuck. My sincere sympathies to you and all the friends and family of Fred Saberhagen.

As an editor of a print magazine (48/ft, O Scale News- a model railroad publication) that could be sued for publishing false information, let me state that it is more important to be right rather than first. A newspaper is thrown away after a day or so, and newsroom morgues are very suspect unless their information can be checked (in case of deaths by the Social Security Death Index or, for recent obits, on Legacy.com). A magazine must have higher degree of veracity than a newpaper--it has a longer "lead" time to check data. An encyclopedia has a still-higher responsibility to "truthiness." Because an encyclopedia's information is not for the day, or for the month, but for history, it's citations must be verifiable...to the nth degree. We expect nothing less.

As a SF reader, fan, and ex-editor, I shall miss Fred Saberhagen. Too many of the old pros are passing, can we replace them?

GHHeier

Quatloo seems like an uptight jackass. But he's right. Wikipedia should contain only statements that can be traced to a public source. It's not a matter of thinking that Locus got the information from someplace different from where John Scalzi got it, or of thinking that published accounts are never wrong. It's a matter of showing the basis for an assertion. If you say your info is from Locus, I can decide for myself whether to trust it. If you claim to have witnessed something personally, in a venue where people are identified only by screen-names, I have no information at all.

Sorry, John, but you're completely in the wrong here.

Arthur Rowe-Podd:

"Sorry, John, but you're completely in the wrong here."

Nonsense. The information on Harlan Ellison's site is public and Harlan himself is a reliable source here, as was Patrica Rogers (who posted on Harlan's site and acting on behalf of Saberhagen's family). This was perfectly cromulent sourcing.

Arthur,

They were notified of a source that has been consistently correct for many years about reporting deaths:

http://webnews.sff.net/read?cmd=xover&group=sff.discuss.obituaries&from=-10

It's been a very good source for a very long time. You'd have to go back years to find an incorrectly listed death there, if at all. That group often gets death announcements days before they hit the papers.

Hey man,

Why bother with Wikipedia anyway? It's basically a hobbiest site full of opinion -- no one (Whjo values their equity, anyway) would ever make real decisions based on anything in wikipedia. In any case, the dialog with Quatloo was entertaining for us, if frustrating for you. Please excuse my cheek if I offer some advice for dealing with the Quatloo's of the world:

"Never battle wits with an unarmed person."

LOVE your site. You, Fark, and slashdot are basically all I need!

What I find most amusing is that while the death of Saberhagen now has two references, the entire rest of the article is uncited. If Quatloo was going to throw a snit-fit about a citation for his death, why does the rest of the article get a free pass?

If Quatloo was doing anything principled, rather than drive-by rules lawyering, then the other biographical details and the entire biography should be removed to maintain compliance with WP's policies. Obviously this is not his concern.

"Too many of the old pros are passing, can we replace them?"

That Scalzi fella has shown the ability to string a word or three together. Reynolds, MacLeod, Stephenson, and a few dozen upon dozen others.

The loss will be felt, but there are plenty of folks warming up in the bullpen.

(Patricia Rogers is here? Talk about six degrees of separation!)

Mr Scalzi,

I thought your tone was unnecessarily rude. Quatloo was simply enforcing Wiki policy, that's not something he created and he really didn't deserve your venting. However, I understand your frustration as well- you consider Harlan a good reliable friend and being well known, you believe his word should be good enough.
Well, that's just not how Wiki works. You have to have a retrievable, verifiable source, and it has to be written with the proper neutral POV and context. When you use the site you agree to follow those standards, if you don't like it you have all the freedom in the world to create your own wiki (or other type of) encyclopedia. I'm frankly surprised that Quatloo kept his cool so well given what a jerk you were.

Hex:

"I thought your tone was unnecessarily rude."

So what? I thought it was exactly correct. And as I'm the person who gets to be in charge of me, my thought on the matter is the one that counts.

Harlan Ellison's not a "good friend" of mine; I've never met the man and the only exposure I've had with him was the time he popped in here to leave a comment.

More to the point, however, and for the umpteenth friggin' time: the source was retrievable and verifiable -- enough so that it was used by Locus, which was the magic ingredient. The fact that the same information somehow magically became retrievable and verifiable once it was posted in Locus points out how absolutely ridiculous the policy is.

"Well, that's just not how Wiki works"

I think we've already established Wikipedia is run poorly, so this isn't entirely surprising. People who come here saying "well, that's just not how Wiki works" as if it proves anything other than Wikipeida has a flawed and asinine system of doing things aren't doing themselves or Wikipedia very many favors.

Since John's first edit did point to a reliable source for the information at the SFF site, Quatloo was not "simply enforcing Wiki policy", but rather imposing his own non-standard interpretations both of "reliable source" (in context, since the SFF location is a long-standing reliable source for information on SF authors' deaths) and (as one can see later on on the talk page) of "contentious" (effectively ignoring it to apply the deletion approach). Quatloo's initial deletion, one-time, may have been reasonable based ona misapprehension about the detailed nature of the sources, but his reactions further downstream on the Talk page, not only to John but to other users, show that he's a self-important twit with way too much time on his hands and an urge always to have the last word.

Jason Penney said: I'm relieved to see my edit seemed to stop the deletions. Also glad I got it in before the article was locked.

The admins are generally smart enough to figure out which way to lock something. In this case, the admin asked me which side I trusted, and I told him and explained why. They know me in the chat as a reputable editor.

Fred Kiesche said: So it appears that neither I or a friend who got the word from the family is not a good enough source for Wikipedia? Would the family be a good enough source if one of them got logged in at Wikipedia and made a change?

Why is Locus "good enough" when (if you saw my e-mail and the e-mail of a friend) it is clear that they got their news from the two of us?

They don't know you from Adam. Locus, however, is quite a bit more likely to actually be the magazine the website claims to be, and not some interloper spoofing the name.

Regarding Harlan's message board: When I found it via Google, it was not at all clear to me that it was in any way related to Harlan Ellison. It looked like it could've been a site set up by his fans. It was certainly possible that the person posting as "Harlan Ellison" wasn't actually the writer of the same name. That was my impression, not knowing anything about him and never having visited his board before. So I can understand Quatloo's position when he dismissed it.

I'm not saying that Quatloo was completely in the right either, by the way. What I am saying is that it didn't have to be frustrating at all. Next time, take the time to step back and assemble all your sources first. Then bury him in links until he's forced to concede. It's much more satisfying that way.

And if he does turns out to be a total nutcase like everyone wants to paint him to be, and he refuses to concede, it still doesn't matter. Because other people (including the admins) can see the whole thing and make intelligent judgements too.

John Scalzi said (on being unnecessarily rude): So what? I thought it was exactly correct. And as I'm the person who gets to be in charge of me, my thought on the matter is the one that counts.

On Wikipedia, they have a rule about being friendly and nonconfrontational. It basically sums up as "be nice to everyone." I've found it works very well for me. You might want to try it yourself when you're in someone else's stomping grounds instead of your own.

James said: Since John's first edit did point to a reliable source for the information at the SFF site,

The problem was that John didn't point to a reliable source. If you mean this SFF link mentioned by Laurie Mann: here on the Whatever this afternoon was the first I'd seen it mentioned. Was it mentioned (and linked) in the deleted versions of the article last night?

To sum up: John was in the wrong in the way he chose to pursue his position. Quatloo was also in the wrong because he misinterpreted some of the Wikipedia guidelines (which Chronodm later came along and corrected - again with the whole "just step back and be patient" thing). Then everyone was wrong to get into an edit war over it instead of talking it all out first. In the end, it looks like Fark readers win.

I've had a problem with Wikipedia ever since some jackass decided to tag all religion and folklore articles as "superstition" and deleted the religion category. Guy's view was that he's an atheist, he thinks religion is crap, and therefore it's all superstitious bunk. It finally got sorted out, but it took FOREVER.

It's a good jumping-off point, but the people who edit/run it are generally asses. Whenever I feel the need to sit back and laugh, I find a busy talk page.

I don't know if this has been said before, I'm just so irritated about this that I had to respond at once.

I'm all on the side of the moderator on this.

Wikipedia should not be a; news site, blog, or facebook.

It tries to be a freaking encyclopaedia! That is facts are published after several well renowned sources report them.

As far as I could see, Quatloo never gave a good cite for any of his claims about Wikipedia Policy: he just pointed at the starting point for a tangled web of documents.

It's not so unlike a vague pointer to the whole SFWA website.

And it's not reliability that's the issue, it's verifiability.

Quatloo seems short on social skills, apparently unaware that he might have been talking to a friend of the dead person. He should, I think, have asked for a more-specific cite, rather than just brandishing Policy.

But I'm English: these situations are ones where a bit of politeness can go a long way.

And some of these Wikipedians can provoke me to Kiplingesque levels of politeness.

Stardust:

"I'm all on the side of the moderator on this."

As a point of clarification, Stardust, this Quatloo character is no more or less a "moderator" on Wikipedia than I am. He has no special authority other than a willingness to be uselessly officious. And in point of fact we know nothing about his personal qualifications to edit anything; he's just another anonymous Wikitwit. Say what you will about me, at least there's no doubt who I am when I make an edit.

Actually, we do have information about Quatloo's past record of activity on Wikipedia. There is a button for it on every user's page, in the toolbox down the left side of the page, marked "User Contributions."

(I'd provide links, but the last thing I wrote with links is still waiting to be released from moderation...)

Excellent, MWT. I would note a past history of anonymous activity does not in itself suggest a personal competency.

There is also Quatloo's edit stats, which organizes the info in a slightly different (and probably more useful for our purposes at present) way.

From there, it's possible to start digging into exactly what he did, how he did it, whether what he did and/or how he did it was useful or not, what kinds of patterns emerge, what those patterns say about his intelligence and interests, etc.

One's record of Wikipedia activities forms the basis behind your Wikipedia reputation. It doesn't matter who else you are in life, or whether you're famous in some other circle (such as sci-fi) and that you think you should be famous to the general public too. It only matters what you actually do on Wikipedia itself.

And I think that's the way it should be. If you're an otherwise mature, rational individual with good judgement, that will show through in what you do. If you're an arrogant dolt, or obviously disrespect everyone around you for being unknowns while thinking that you shouldn't be an unknown yourself, well, that shows too.

I also find it rather ironic that a bunch of people in the book publishing industry are getting all worked up over the fact that Wikipedia doesn't move speedily to get things done that they want done. Wikipedia admins have higher priorities too. Much of their time seems to be spent tracking vandals and hammering on sockpuppets, and deleting obviously spurious pages from 13 year olds inventing things out of their imagination. Sometimes they hit a target they shouldn't. But they're human and make mistakes too.

This nearly ranks up there with the wikifight over the orthography of danah boyd's name. Legally her name is all lower case. Of course most news sources use Danah Boyd. See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Danah_Boyd for just how out of hand this can get.

The thing that worries me more is the insistence on print citations. I'm a software engineer by trade, and the print media for my field is fast vanishing. It's also becoming largely irrelevant. Most information is being self published in blogs and self-hosted web sites. This seems to make it unciteable by wikipedia.

Of course, at the same time, you have groups like Sun pressing for blogs to be a legit source for reg fd disclosure. That is, they'd like to publish their quarterly earnings reports in the company blog, and not have to rely on press releases. http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan/entry/one_small_step_for_the

At which point, I'm sure one of the hall monitors at wikipedia will have a full blown conniption, and refuse to recognize the SEC.

MWT:

"And I think that's the way it should be. If you're an otherwise mature, rational individual with good judgement, that will show through in what you do. If you're an arrogant dolt, or obviously disrespect everyone around you for being unknowns while thinking that you shouldn't be an unknown yourself, well, that shows too."

Heh.

Are you suggesting that one's "Wikipedia reputation" is tied in to one's ability to edit? Because if it isn't, who cares what one's reputation is? Also, of course, the "Garbage In, Garbage Out" principle applies -- if Wikipedia's fundamental practices aren't particularly good, it means that those faithfully executing those practices inevitably do the place a disservice.

I understand Quatloo thinks he was being useful and diligent; I think he was neither because he apparently lacks the discrimination to understand that the data provided was credible. He might be able to recite Wikipedia guidelines chapter and verse, but my experience of him suggests he can't much think clearly, and I'm not entirely sure why that means he's a good editor for the site.

Likewise, I understand Wikipedia folks deal with a lot of noise and stupid people doing stupid things on the site, and they certainly have sympathy and support in keeping the site useful. I want them to exercise some discrimination as well.

Please release my first comment from the moderation queue? It was lengthy and I spent an hour working on it, and then it had too many links. Or did it get lost and I should just repost?

John Scalzi said: Are you suggesting that one's "Wikipedia reputation" is tied in to one's ability to edit?

Perhaps I'm missing your point, because my answer would be yes. Are you trying to say it shouldn't be?

As for Quatloo, he's one specific editor, and yes, based on a quick skim over his edit history, I agree with you that he's possibly not the best thinker of the reasons behind the policies. There are people taking him to task about it on the Talk page now - people who are just as versed as he is in all the guidelines (if not more). Those people are going to be more effective in the long run than the way you were going about it. Consensus will still triumph. :)

MWT:

Just released the post -- thanks for the head's up. Don't know how I missed it in an earlier sweep. Sorry.

Re: Wikipedia reputation: I guess I'm wondering how one's reputation limits/expands one's editing abilities. If one has a very bad reputation, for example, how is one kept from making edits?

Re: Others being more effective -- Oh, I would hope so. On the other hand, if he's been taken to task on this subject before, should we be convinced that this time he'll learn?

John Scalzi said: Re: Wikipedia reputation: I guess I'm wondering how one's reputation limits/expands one's editing abilities. If one has a very bad reputation, for example, how is one kept from making edits?

Oh, there are procedures for account deletions and IP bans and the like. It's a conservative procedure, with a stepwise escalation of warnings that starts with "hi there! thank you for making an edit test that I've now removed. Here's a handy welcome message with links to start you off on how to be a productive contributor." to "Please quit vandalizing" to "Just go away."

The general philosophy is to assume that people are going to edit in good faith once they've learned what they're doing. Now that I think of it, it's approximately the same as your moderation of Whatever - giving people lots of chances to be valued commenters, even if you already know they're going to suck.

On the flip side, a longstanding, well-established history of constructive edits and helpfulness to other newbies is (in practice, if not in theory) a requirement for becoming an admin. Your history gets scrutinized by your fellow editors, you go through a detailed Q&A grilling, and then it's based on a vote. Anyone can vote. (It's actually more of a consensus call and a bureaucrat makes the final decision, but in practice the bureaucrat usually goes by the consensus).

Re: Others being more effective -- Oh, I would hope so. On the other hand, if he's been taken to task on this subject before, should we be convinced that this time he'll learn?

Maybe, maybe not. He's only one editor. There are lots of them, all of varying quality. (And no, they actually are not organized into an evil Cabal, as some people like to believe.)

Is it important that Quatloo in particular learns something? Does it matter? The edit you wanted got in, and he's backed off now that it's properly referenced. What more do you want?

What is the point of having a real time edit public contribution system with pop culture topics if one can't add the most recent news without delay?

As MWT said:

"That said, though, it does help to work with the community and learn its ways of doing things. As with any community. I'll be the first to agree that the procedure pages can be complex and convoluted, which could definitely use some streamlining, but they are there to be perused and despite poor organization they still aren't rocket science."

Wikipedia is chock-full of dweebs whose only real expertise is Wikipedia's way of doing things. Naturally, they'd like for their knowledge to become more valuable. This leads them to constantly preach that Wikipedia isn't broken; everyone will just have to learn Wikipedia's way of doing things.

Have you by any chance noticed how many reasonable, knowledgeable, intelligent people are increasingly unwilling to do that? It's because Wikipedia's way of doing things is stupid. If we invest an insanely wasteful amount of time learning The Wikipedia Way, it will still be stupid. Using it will waste even more time.

To repeat: I won't do it. I will continue to call Wikipedia stupid, though.

Arthur Rowe-Podd said:

"If you say your info is from Locus, I can decide for myself whether to trust it. If you claim to have witnessed something personally, in a venue where people are identified only by screen-names, I have no information at all."

Mark Gritter very sapiently said:

"What I find most amusing is that while the death of Saberhagen now has two references, the entire rest of the article is uncited. If Quatloo was going to throw a snit-fit about a citation for his death, why does the rest of the article get a free pass?

If Quatloo was doing anything principled, rather than drive-by rules lawyering, then the other biographical details and the entire biography should be removed to maintain compliance with WP's policies. Obviously this is not his concern."

Hex is a type-specimen example of Wikiweeniness. S/he/it might even be Quatloo, "personal vanity" being IMO the single best explanation for how someone could believe that Quatloo "kept his cool" during that argument.

MWT, who's still digging, also said:

"One's record of Wikipedia activities forms the basis behind your Wikipedia reputation. It doesn't matter who else you are in life, or whether you're famous in some other circle (such as sci-fi) and that you think you should be famous to the general public too. It only matters what you actually do on Wikipedia itself.

And I think that's the way it should be. If you're an otherwise mature, rational individual with good judgement, that will show through in what you do. If you're an arrogant dolt, or obviously disrespect everyone around you for being unknowns while thinking that you shouldn't be an unknown yourself, well, that shows too."

"I also find it rather ironic that a bunch of people in the book publishing industry are getting all worked up over the fact that Wikipedia doesn't move speedily to get things done that they want done."

I hail from the book publishing industry too, and I hold Wikipedia in contempt for a completely different reason: its idolatrous and indiscriminate worship of printed sources, which just goes to show that collectively, Wikipedians have no notion of how to weigh the reliability of one source against another. It also goes to show that they have no notion of the circumstances under which those printed sources were produced.

Yes, TNH. I remember that massive Making Light discussion. It was chock full of "them folks" this and that. Just the same as you think shouldn't be done to "you folks" who are regular Making Light commenters.

There are lots of editors of Wikipedia. You're putting entirely too much weight on how much Quatloo in particular should represent the whole of Wikipedia. Having glanced over his edit history, what it looks like he does is specialize on birth and death dates of biographies in particular. And he's leaving it as someone else's job to figure out cites for other parts of the article(s). Same as me with categorization of song articles, which is where I spend most of my time. For the past few weeks I've been moving hundreds of articles about various EPs into year-based categories, and in order to do that efficiently I can't spend time looking at every aspect of every article. I just do the years and move on. Someone else can figure out whether any particular hip hop EP (a music genre I know nothing about) is notable or not.

In short, there is a lot of work. Some of the mindless tedious bits have been automated because there are people who constantly write new bots. But there is still more to do than anyone has time for.

I think instead of trying to get into a detailed breakdown of everything in TNH's comment, I'll just say this: going to a community and saying "we don't like these rules and therefore we're not going to follow them" is not the way to get things to change.

It also helps to leave your egos at the door and skip the personal flames.

(pardon the double post - I missed this the first time.)

Adela said: What is the point of having a real time edit public contribution system with pop culture topics if one can't add the most recent news without delay?

Because it's not a news source. It's an encyclopedia. There is a difference.

Also, one further general comment: It might be worth remembering that 90% of everything, even Wikipedia editors, is "crap." You can complain about that at length if you want, but it also bears noting that despite the crap, we still somehow manage to have a reasonably good encyclopedia.

If it is an encyclopedia then get rid of real time edits all together. Have a submissions holding pen so contributions can be looked over for factuality. I would also say all users should be under real names and have credentials listed with their info.
I can think of a lot of ways to turn it into a real encyclopedia which currently in its half assed good intentions poor application state it is not.

Sounds like you're looking for Citizendium.

Oh, this is too bad. I didn't know that he lived in Santa Fe, and I've been a fan of his for many years. I would have liked to have meet him.

Of course, it's possible that I did, and that I simply didn't know that it was him. I have a funny story involving George R. R. Martin and S. M. Stirling, but that's neither here nor there.

Anyway, I added a note on wikipedia's Bio page about the line that the Quatloo the moron is using against you. Perhaps now that you've illustrated how flawed the rule is, we can change it slightly.

"It also helps to leave your egos at the door and skip the personal flames."

Right. Utopia is at hand, just as soon as you bad people can bring yourselves to transcend your petty, personal, individual ego needs.

Definitely a convincing argument. Particularly coming, as it does, from someone hiding behind a pseudonym!

Also from the bravely pseudonymous "MWT":

"I think instead of trying to get into a detailed breakdown of everything in TNH's comment, I'll just say this: going to a community and saying 'we don't like these rules and therefore we're not going to follow them' is not the way to get things to change."

Which is of course a mendacious misrepresentation. But people who hide behind pseudonyms don't need to worry about being exposed as liars.

In fact TNH wasn't advocating saying "we don't like these rules and therefore we're not going to follow them". She was saying the rules are stupid. I've been saying the same thing. I've also been saying that the basic idealism and experimentalism that drive Wikipedia are admirable and good. Oddly enough, pseudonymous Wikipedians hiding behind pseudonyms like "MWT" don't want to engage with the arguments of someone who (the confusion! It burns our brains!) basically sympathizes with their project, but thinks their implementation is dopey in the details. Because that might involve admitting to, you know, mistakes. Far better to lie and mischaracterize their critics, which is ever so much easier to do when you're an anonymous troll.

Wikipedia in its current form is just a gussied up over glorified discussion list with all the problems that go with it.
So the answer is not to fix it but to create a sibling instead.
"Well our first born is a partying deadbeat but maybe the next one will be the serious and earn their keep."

PNH:
Far better to lie and mischaracterize their critics, which is ever so much easier to do when you're an anonymous troll.

Or Vice-President of the United States. ;-)

I'll also 'hide behind a pseudonym', because I've spent a lot of time building up my reputation under this pseudonym and it'll tell people more about me than my legal name would. PNH and perhaps TNH may recognise me from rasfc.

I see no justification for the claim that MWT is a troll.

Wikipedia's policy is that claims - particularly controversial claims - should cite multiple reliable sources. The recent murder scandal aside, consider how much more distress could be caused friends and family by a premature announcement of someone's death than by a postponed announcement; it is far safer to remove a claim that one is not absolutely certain of than to leave it there for later.

Wikipedia gets slammed when it has a mistake in an article and it gets slammed when it tries to make sure its articles are correct.

Wikipedia is inherently a slapdash affair. One anonymous person writes a sentence; another adds a second; a third vandalises it; a fourth fixes it. (And just because one anonymous person signs in as "John Scalzi" doesn't make them a great deal less anonymous than one who signs in as "Quatloo". I could sign in as "Lois McMaster Bujold" if I wanted.) The wonder of Wikipedia, the glorious thing, is that out of this slapdash thing, order is created.

It's frustrating at times, yes. Earlier this year I spent some weeks working to keep the MSTing article from deletion. There was no doubt of the existence of the phenomenon, but Wikipedia is an encylopaedia: a tertiary source based on secondary and occasionally primary sources, not a primary source based on the horse's mouth. That is what it was founded as and that is what it is. And it wasn't a case of print vs web, it was a case of secondary sources vs original research. The simple fact was that there weren't many secondary sources about MSTing, in print or online; but the sources I did dredge up (in Swedish, one of them, I had to go that far) were eventually enough to rescue the article.

As the secondary source Locus was enough to rescue the statement of Saberhagen's death.

I do not begrudge any of the time I spent searching for references for MSTing; I don't even resent the original proposal that the article be deleted. The difficulty I had finding the references made me appreciate the reasons for the proposal; and above all, the references I found, and the attention it received due to the deletion debate, made it a much better article than it had been before. Out of slapdashery, order; out of 'wikitwittery', progress.

The ups and downs of article editing may put off some people, but I find it wondrous and inspiring. The dopiest thing about the policies' details is that they rely on people to implement -- yet despite this glaring flaw in Wikipedia's plans, it works.

PNH: I'm not the one that started my post by calling all Wikipedians dweebs. Now you're additionally calling me a liar, stupid ("the confusion burns our brains"? :p), and an anonymous troll. Please explain how this does not constitute personal flaming.

And sorry. What she actually said was "We don't know the rules and don't want to learn them (because we think they're stupid and we're still not going to follow them), but we want to keep whining about it from the outside anyway." Or maybe it was "We think it's a great idea, but the implementation is terrible, but we don't want to help it get better, we'd rather just whine about it from the outside." Is that more accurate? Maybe someday you'll get past the "Wikipedia's policies suck!" stage and move on to the "Why are they the way they are?" stage, whereupon maybe you can learn something. Though I really am surprised that you two, of all people, can't figure out how to apply what you must know about the ins-and-outs of moderating large communities to Wikipedia - which really is not that different.

Also, in case you've completely failed to notice, I never said Wikipedia was perfect. I've pointed out a number of its flaws over the course of this comment thread, in fact. Wikipedia is what it is, that's all. I accept it and try to work with it.

"MWT" is my real initials. No I'm not going to tell you my real name, as it's pointless whether you know it or not because I'm still just a random nobody on the Internet. If you want me to list everywhere else I've ever been so you can make sure that I'm not secretly Quatloo or Jimbo Wales or someone else who actually has a dog in your fights, you can inquire over email. net, dot, comcast, at, nerwen.

I'm more of a fringe Wikipedian, actually. I quietly edit the things that interest me, know how to be polite and patient when I get involved in a disagreement with my fellow editors, seek out info about policies as I need to know them, have stumbled into the places where admins can be found, and try to ignore the bulk of the politics. All without investing huge amounts of time. (Seriously. It really isn't rocket science.)

TNH said: Have you by any chance noticed how many reasonable, knowledgeable, intelligent people are increasingly unwilling to do that?

I have noticed that many reasonable, knowledgeable, intelligent and helpful people are found among the admins and other editors.

TNH said: The real point, which has already been mentioned here, is that you can behave quite badly on Wikipedia without having your activities there curtailed.

Yes, and that's why John Scalzi still has his account too, despite his performance on Saberhagen's talk page.*

As for printed sources: It might depend what parts of Wikipedia you're looking at. In the song and album articles for popular music, I see sources from online places all the time, and have used them in articles I've written without anyone complaining. I've never seen it come up that they're supposed to be print-only. That's the main thing that keeps me from addressing that point, which seems to get mentioned over and over; I have no firsthand experiences about it.

Overall: it's obvious that PNH, TNH, Scalzi, and a large number of people in SF Fandom have had negative experiences with editting Wikipedia. I, however, have not. And based on what I saw of your collective behavior on Saberhagen's talk page, I'm inclined to doubt that there are as many psychopaths as you're calling. Quatloo wasn't stellar in his behavior (either), but he also wasn't completely wrong.

Anyway, getting back to arguing with someone who is actually reasonable... :p

John Scalzi: Are you suggesting that one's "Wikipedia reputation" is tied in to one's ability to edit?

Upon rereading back over the comment thread, I finally figured out what you were getting at: that either being a mature, rational individual with good judgement or an arrogant dolt, you're still able to make edits. So I guess we were talking past each other. Sorry for being a bit slow on the uptake.

Well, basically, Wikipedia is based on consensus. People who insist on just going in to make what edits they feel are right, without first discussing it on the talk page, tend to eventually find themselves labelled "vandals" and blocked.

Also, I think I've spotted a key philosophical difference in the way we approach the whole thing. You're looking at it in terms of individual editors (so you're interested in whether Quatloo learns any lessons from all this or not, whether people know you're a famous sci-fi writer, etc.). I'm not; I'm looking at it in terms of individual articles. Multiple points of view from multiple editors are a good thing because each one brings something to the table. However, who specifically each editor is and what else they know, is not relevant. It doesn't matter what their identities are, just the quality of info they bring to share for the good of the article. By extension, judging the quality of someone else's info often includes looking at the quality of past input they've brought to past articles. And that's where reputations come in. Does that make sense?

*A note for the people who are going to be maliciously dense: I like John Scalzi just fine. I think he's great fun to read, which is why I hang out here on his blog. It's his actions on the talk page that I strongly disagree with, for coincidentally the same reasons that other Wikipedians disagree with them.

**Additional disclaimers: I also like TNH just fine when she's talking about writing and the publishing industry. Making Light as a whole, however, makes me feel unwelcome for basically the types of behavior that TNH and PNH have exhibited toward me in their last 2-3 posts.

I want to post a quick note of support to MWT. Throughout the discussion above, sie has been clear, concise, polite, and very readable, even for me, a complete 'outsider' to the Wikipedia community. At no point in these comments did sie exhibit troll-like behavior, or personal attacks, despite quite a bit of provocation.

Teresa, Patrick -- you know me. I'm not hiding behind any anonymity. Patrick, I think you were out of line in calling MWT a liar, etc., and frankly, I think you should apologize.

I have not read the Saberhagen talk page, so I'm not going to address the Scalzi/Quatloo debate. I have never edited a Wikipedia article myself, and have no vested interested in this debate one way or the other. That said, in general I find Wikipedia incredibly useful on a day-to-day basis; I probably check it for a minor point of information every few days, such as 'what are the light requirements for growing clematis?' For most of the information it covers, I've found it incredibly helpful.

Given that helpfulness, as a user, I'm more than willing to put up with a certain amount of delay when potentially controversial facts are being verified by multiple edited sources. I'm not particularly worried if they currently privilege print sources; I doubt that will last long at all, as more and more professional publications move to electronic publishing. The key is that the source be a reputable publication, and has been through some sort of editing process. It doesn't seem so much to ask.

I don't have the time/energy/patience/attention-to-detail myself to be a Wikipedia editor, but I'm very grateful to those who do the work. I'm sure the process will continue to improve over time -- the encyclopedia itself improves measurably in depth and usefulness every month. I find that impressive.

And a quick additional note re: approved sources -- I don't know whether Wikipedia already does this. But it seems like it would make the volunteer editors' lives easier if somewhere behind the scenes (but easily accessible to editors/users) they maintained a list of pre-approved sources, both print and electronic, by subject area. This might cover print publications, electronic publications, recognized experts in the field and their blogs, etc.

So that if I wanted to make an edit, I could quickly glance over that list to see if I could credit a trusted source -- I think I'd be personally much more likely to go to the effort of making an edit if I knew that the source I used was acceptable, and my edit wouldn't simply be reversed immediately.

The process for making it onto that list should also be fairly simple -- perhaps as simple as having a few representatives from already-vetted publications vouch for your expertise. So that, for example, Charlie Brown who edits Locus (or one of his representatives, such as Tim Pratt), could vouch for 'Making Light' as a publication from industry experts.

Eventually, that might even lead to my (and Scalzi's) personal blogs being listed as expert sources, given my years of professional experience as editor and publisher, and then when editing Wikipedia, I could just cite my own blog. That would simplify matters enormously for me. :-) Though it does seem a bit circular.

MWT, would that work? Does it already happen?

Mary Anne, I agree whole-heartedly about the source issue. I started a discussion over at Wikipedia called "Trusted Sources" (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Village_pump_%28policy%29#Trusted_Sources).

I have mixed feelings about Wikipedia - it's simultaneously more useful and less useful these days. But I remember the early days of Wikipedia when the trolls seemed to own large chunks of it and the information was surprisingly bad. It's gotten better. But the "fundamentalist" view of sourcing that some contributors seem to hold is silly.

I'd also like to point out that this whole fight would never have happened if my edits to Fred's bio hadn't been deleted in the first place!

How timely!

MWT:

"A note for the people who are going to be maliciously dense: I like John Scalzi just fine. I think he's great fun to read, which is why I hang out here on his blog. It's his actions on the talk page that I strongly disagree with, for coincidentally the same reasons that other Wikipedians disagree with them."

I like you just fine, too MWT. People can argue and debate and not take it all personally.

I do have to point out, however, that the attitude about me on the Saberhagen talk page by "Wikipedians" is not nearly as cut-and-dried as you make it appear to be here, either in my interpretation of my policy nor in my attitude toward Quatloo's (IMO) pointless officiousness. Perhaps there's some discussion where I'm not seeing it, but otherwise it's not a black and white thing.

Patrick, in your attacks on those using pseudonyms in this thread, you've incorrectly accused "Three Oranges" of addressing Fred Saberhagen instead of the Fred whose comments were three above Three Oranges's and used your inattention to detail to comment on the intelligence of "bravely anonymous Wikipedians" without ever retracting it. You've accused MWT of arguing in bad faith by deliberately lying and being an anonymous troll, despite MWT's previous record on the thread of measured discourse.

Using a pseudonym or being anonymous may weaken an argument, but using your own name is clearly no panacea either.

Like Mary Anne, I'd like to say I've really enjoyed MWT's contributions to the discussion. I've been reading Whatever for quite a while now and, in my experience, most dissenting views do not last long, mainly because a) you have to be able to hold a logical debate without taking the easy routes of personal attacks or blanket statements and b) the only person really allowed to make snarky responses is Scalzi himself (I refer you to the "goddamn fool: opinion or fact?" comments at the top of the comments queue).
It seems to me that MWT has offered a thoughtful opinion that provides a good counterpoint to Scalzi's opinion. Personal attacks against him/her are, IMO, uncalled for. Regardless of the quality of friendship the poster may have with Scalzi himself, the aforementioned ownership snark pass is Scalzi's alone.

(And upon refreshing my screen, it seems others agree. I don't normally post to simply say what others have already said, but I've come up with "ownership snark pass." How can I delete that?)

While I don't completely agree with MWT, I don't have the same "WTH!" opinion of MWT that I had when I read Qualtoo and some of the other Wikipedia "editors." I've also been having a mostly pretty reasonable discussion with Steve Block over on the Wikipedia side of the world. I think some folks connected to Wikipedia can discuss policy issues reasonably.

"I think we've already established Wikipedia is run poorly, so this isn't entirely surprising. People who come here saying "well, that's just not how Wiki works" as if it proves anything other than Wikipeida has a flawed and asinine system of doing things aren't doing themselves or Wikipedia very many favors."

We've established one thing, and that's that you are an egomaniac.

There are two Stephen Donaldsons. One of them writes fantasy novels. The other (aka Danny the Punk) was raped in prison and became a prison reform activist. Piers Anthony confused the two, but the Wikipedia disambiguation page doesn't.

Hex:

"We've established one thing, and that's that you are an egomaniac."

Oh, snap, Hex. Excuse me while I so salve my wounds because some anonymous Wikitwit such as yourself is all affronted. Really, I can't even begin to tell you how much I will dwell on your scorn.

Oh, wait! I can! Not much. There, I'm done.

Also, of course, my egotism is neither here nor there to that fact that Wikipeida has a flawed and asinine system of doing things.

Haha, wikitwit? OH SNAP INDEED! No wonder you're such a shitty writer, you're about as witty a special ed class.

Yes, Hex, I suck horribly. Thanks for noticing. Move along now, you're boring the crap out of me.

Aw now, I didn't mean that. You're a swell writer.

Thanks, Hex. Warms my heart, it does.

I think it's sad that instead of writing about Fred and his life and what his fiction meant to you, you whine about damn wikipedia instead and mention your many awards. Now that it's on your site, it's official, huh?

Aaron, I'll let you know when I care what you think.

Thanks everyone for your supportive words. Even the "me too" ones. ;)

Mary Anne Mohanraj: That does sound like a great idea. I have no idea if it exists, but maybe someone could go propose it over on Laurie Mann's discussion. (I've only had time to skim over it so far; despite TNH's assumption that my entire life is spent on Wikipedia, I actually do spend time on other things too....) But again - this whole printed sources issue is something that I've not personally encountered at all. What I do now with my own articles is to just Google the heck out of the subject, and that seems to be fine with whoever else watches the articles I've worked on.

John Scalzi: I do have to point out, however, that the attitude about me on the Saberhagen talk page by "Wikipedians" is not nearly as cut-and-dried as you make it appear to be here,

"...for coincidentally the same reasons that some other Wikipedians disagree with them." ?

Yeah, by the time I got to that part of my rant I was getting sloppier. Sorry. Moral of the story is still "Wikipedians are not a monolithic cabal."

My basis for writing that is just my personal impression of what the consensus is likely to be when all is said and done, based on having read the "be nice" guidelines and observing various admins in action. Every community has an 'overall feel' associated with it, that guides me on what behavior is likely to be acceptable and what isn't. My instincts tend to be trustworthy, even if they aren't citable. ;)

Stephen Granade: Using a pseudonym or being anonymous may weaken an argument, but using your own name is clearly no panacea either.

This is why I think that Citizendium will not do better than Wikipedia. I used to be on Usenet when everybody did use real names, and that sure didn't stop anyone from behaving badly. And besides, you should see some of what science professors do when they're arguing amongst themselves in real life.