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Talkback

Biography of Ælfwaru (d. 1007)

Okay then....

Given you have a longitudinal interest and have written about the development of the 'pedia, I figured you may be interested in a carrots instead of sticks approach to content building - the wikicup is held annually, and rewards audited content - hence I was thinking of multipliers - trick is to think of some ungameable and easy to judge ones...have a look at --> Wikipedia_talk:WikiCup/Scoring#Okay_-_bombs_away. cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 20:58, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Trouble is I disagree with the whole idea, sorry. Charles Matthews (talk) 21:05, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Erm..why? I guess my involvement and thinking is that it exists in and of itself and a number of editors have found participation fun. My angle was given this, was/is there a way of rewarding focus on core content. Hence the proposal(s). Last year was largely fun, and it was tightly run. Casliber (talk · contribs) 22:25, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, we completely differ, then. There seems to be an inherent lameness in the point-scoring approach, particularly anything to do with DYKs. If this is an unfamiliar approach, then I think it deserves to be less so. Charles Matthews (talk) 22:27, 16 December 2010 (UTC)

It's certainly not an unfamiliar approach as I've seen parts of the community who are (let's day) lukewarm to cooler to both DYK and wikicup. From where I sit, I see that editing the 'pedia has changed alot in the past five years and needs more rigor now. i.e. not only can one just add material but one has to find and format inline referencing, which I suspect many passersby have not the energy or inclination to do. Hence any scheme which promotes referencing is a good one. However, as with all complex entities, one cannot separate out the good bits from the bad, so it is a matter of practicalities. One only has to look around to see how much humans love to collect sets of trinkets (McDonald's toys, football cards, trainspotting etc., wikipedia awards) and compete (ubiquitous) - we can't change that- anyway, I now know your view on this and you know mine. Ah well, Casliber (talk · contribs) 00:15, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Well, I can think of about ten thousand things around the site that need doing, that simply need attention, and that I would rate above the time-sink DYK has clearly become. The "recognition" aspect of life here has also drifted well away from the idea that a wiki is about collective editing, in my view. There are areas in which good work is done: on high-quality articles, as curation (WikiProjects), and so on. I don't see that centralising recognition is the right approach, at all. Charles Matthews (talk) 07:07, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

I think DYK serves a good purpose in the referencing as well of expanding of new articles and stubs - the 1500 characters is often just enough for an article to get a bit of 'meat' on the bare bones (I concede there have been some dramas lately but on the whole I think it is a net positive). Also, the audited content often expands according to active wikiprojects such as Milhist, Birds, dinos (mainly '06-'08), whales ('05) and a few others - I look at the WP:FA page and I see 'bulges' in all sorts of areas where there are active editors and deficits in others - furthermore, the (justified) higher standards of FAC make some of the bigger core articles long projects indeed. All the auditing areas are good examples of collaobrative editing, as are the active wikiprojects - the trick is how do we encourage active collaboration elsewhere. Casliber (talk · contribs) 08:13, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Indeed. I'm interested in several neglected things, for example:

• Stub upgrades and new article creation from PD material on Wikisource (especially the DNB);
• Referencing upgrades (e.g. Oxford Dictionary of National Biography, at least 5000 places to use the template, and possibly give a link to the PD version);
• Adding images via the FIST tool that picks up what is available along interwiki links.

These should all just happen. My concern is that newcomers assume that FA and DYK are the "real business" of the site, because of the fuss made of them. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:33, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

See this is the thing - I agree this should all just happen, but am concerned that it doesn't. So question is, what do we do then...hence the auditing process for pushing folks that extra bit to add in the inline references...Casliber (talk · contribs) 13:16, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

Inline referencing is good. But it has become a fetish: I have talked to a couple of people, who clearly should know better, who seem to think it is laid down in the MoS. Not yet. Quality not quantity still applies. I do a lot with {{DNB}}, and the difference between {{DNB}} and {{DNB|wstitle=Henry V}} is that if the template is filled in, you can go read the original on Wikisource. This is much more important to verifiability than adding inline refs to each para: and it requires work out of sight of some of the aspects of WP you are talking about.

We do have to remember what is the means, and what the end, and over-emphasis on say process, or say auditing, or say lawyerish things in the area of ArbCom, have proliferated because of a certain lack of perspective on how things work on the round. Convince me you have a plan addressing that complex of issues, and I'll get interested. Charles Matthews (talk) 19:42, 17 December 2010 (UTC)

(belatedly) okay, my background in this is interest in how the goal (the production of a comprehensive global encyclopedia with nice formatting and some degree of uniformity) and the editing habits of volunteers in producing content mix. Push too hard, one drives volunteers away, or don't push at all and inequities and shortfalls risk being exaggerated. So the question there is how to make the pushing attractive (which is where linking of rewards such as competitions etc. comes in). The other question is identifying where and how the shortfalls are arising. These include improving inline referencing - which doesn't come as naturally as the instant gratification of adding material in an almost stream-of-conscious manner (which was highly necessary early on in the early growth phase, up to 2005-06 or so), and content issues. The polishing off of articles is an essential component of producing a stable base (principally the Featured Articles) -the making of articles which are comprehensive, accessible and referenced yet concise. Problem is, as the process has grown more rigorous, it has become much easier to polish esoteric rather than general content (also a side effect of the honours roll). Thus my interest in the wikicup. One can't change human nature in its collection of trinkets and recognition, so what can one do to steer the reward system align more closely with encyclopedic objectives? (this is where DYK, GA and FA have been key cogs in getting folks to adopt inline references. The positive connotation of seeing the little blue subscript numbers is such that they don't jar my reading anymore...anyway, this is where I am coming from. Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:56, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

PS: This is where recognising what illogical and nostalgia-filled critters humans are....background in psychiatry/psychology helps us...I always tell my patients that if we were all logical we'd be driving bright yellow or orange cars as they are the safest (well, those not riding bikes which are substantially healthier from a cardiovascular (but not orthopedic) point of view anyway...) cheers, Casliber (talk · contribs) 19:59, 21 December 2010 (UTC)

Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Go#Mingjiu_Jiang_Can_you_help.?

Hi Charles. A couple of us have tried the usual sources, but have drawn a blank for Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Go#Mingjiu_Jiang_Can_you_help?.

Any chance you could suggest further resources for us? Thanks in advance, Trafford09 (talk) 22:17, 28 December 2010 (UTC)

There is the GoGoD CD-ROM for all of these biographies. He is in there, and I have to explain why I stopped using it (which explains also why I stopped working on go articles, really). John Fairbairn actually asked me to stop putting information from the GoGoD disc up here, some years ago. It really is the ultimate "reliable source" for go biography in English, but I have of course respected John's wishes in the matter. I have no reason to believe that attitude has changed, and in fact I have been in touch with GoGoD on matters to do with Ugandan go just recently, where they have been very helpful.

So I have bit of a dilemma here. I have just tried the Japanese reading "Ko Meikyu" and Google gives nothing. I have reason to believe the player is now in the USA anyway, may not be playing go as a pro therefore. Marginal.

The other big resource is Go World on disc as PDF. I was given this a while ago and haven't yet learned how to do the full-width search operation. That would generally be very useful for such work, in fact. Charles Matthews (talk) 10:43, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks - that's useful background info., and gives me some ideas. Cheers, Trafford09 (talk) 14:49, 29 December 2010 (UTC)

Geobox

Hi Charles. I was wondering if you could copy and paste this and update Template:Geobox. Its practically the same but it has the maps moved nearer the top where they belong..♦ Dr. Blofeld 14:02, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Done. Charles Matthews (talk) 16:41, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

Thanks.♦ Dr. Blofeld 21:07, 30 December 2010 (UTC)

See Template talk:Geobox#map_position. Plastikspork _―Œ 06:34, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Captain R. T. Claridge

Thanks for your attention to the Captain R. T. Claridge article, and your attention to the authorlink for Algernon Graves. The Claridge article is essentially in maintenance phase now (minor tweaks notwithstanding, but substantive information on this fellow has been exhausted for now, and Misplaced Pages has an excessive amount of incmplete articles - like Algernon Graves - requiring attention), and your effort in maintaining the integrity of the Claridge article is appreciated. Wotnow (talk) 06:01, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

You're welcome. Charles Matthews (talk) 08:42, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

Talkback

Early MPs and DNB

Hi Charles I see you are raising concerns about 17th century MPs. At the moment I am trying to build up articles on the pre-Restoration MPs which is the devil's own job because the sources are often unreliable and inconsistent. I am building up lists by parliament and there are two documents at least that list MPs by parliament which are Browne Willis and Cobbett although these sometimes differ. The DNB is wrong in instances as I have seen it attribute an MP to a county instead of the borough and vice versa (can't remember where). I am hopeful that the power of WP gives us an opportunity get a more accurate picture. Regards Motmit (talk) 22:42, 3 January 2011 (UTC)

Yes, certainly a worthy project. I have some relevant books. I am generally interested in making the best use of the old DNB text here; but that doesn't extend as far as trusting it 100%. Searching the updated ODNB for a constituency can often throw up material of considerable interest. But I think it does need to go constituency by constituency, making it all a long job. Also the people lead one into "gentry" history, which is a bit of a maze generally though there can be plenty of background in some cases. Charles Matthews (talk) 06:34, 4 January 2011 (UTC)

Request

Hello. I believe that you may be able to help with an issue over this page. The external page linked to currently contains racist and anti-semitic comments and this link cannot be appropriate for a user page on Misplaced Pages, whatever the reason for displaying it. I notified the user and he took the external page down briefly but it is now back again. Could you have a word with him please? 212.183.140.41 (talk) 20:12, 6 January 2011 (UTC)

I believe I understand why that link is there. Since WP:SOAPBOX explicitly applies to user pages, it is arguable that the link on User:Mathsci contradicts that policy; certainly it looks as if it goes against its spirit. You could mention this opinion of mine to him. Charles Matthews (talk) 20:51, 6 January 2011 (UTC)