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thistlechick
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Post by thistlechick »

perhaps we need to consider courting relationships with other free online encyclopedic resources... I'm saying that knowing that I should do the research as to what sources, but my time is burdened this week with "real life" work-related responsibilities... Any one else is welcome to take the idea and run with it.
~ Betsie
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
hugh
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Post by hugh »

well one good thing came of all that: there's a librivox article on wikipedia now:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Librivox

please note tho, librivoxer are definitely not supposed to edit articles about librivox directly - this IS a sensible policy.

if you want to add something, you can go to the Librivox:Talk page, here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Librivox
Gesine
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Post by Gesine »

Agree with the sour taste, but then Wikipedia is so big, it needs all its rules and regulations. We shall need more of them ourselves, when we grow that big. The same thing happened with dmoz and lots of these other volunteer-run projects. - Of course it's good to be flexible, but large organisations invariably lose part of that flexibility. And let's not forget that this is just one admin, who takes this particular rule very seriously. Taking a big picture look, Wikipedia is still a great thing! :)
"Imagination is more important than knowledge. Knowledge is limited. Imagination circles the world." Albert Einstein
kri
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Post by kri »

Gesine wrote:Agree with the sour taste, but then Wikipedia is so big, it needs all its rules and regulations. We shall need more of them ourselves, when we grow that big. The same thing happened with dmoz and lots of these other volunteer-run projects. - Of course it's good to be flexible, but large organisations invariably lose part of that flexibility. And let's not forget that this is just one admin, who takes this particular rule very seriously. Taking a big picture look, Wikipedia is still a great thing! :)
I guess what I've realized in this is that I don't like the inevitability of conflict in such a large volunteer run thing like Wikipedia. It seems everywhere I looked there was conflict, and tension. I don't necessarily mean constant arguing, or bad conflict, it was just too much for me. I get angry to easily :)

[edit] Except I HAD to create an account to make a comment about the Librivox page. I care about this project too much to let them advertise with the Baltimore Sun quote that we have 15 novels. We have twice that now!
hugh
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Post by hugh »

yeah that was wierd. so much officiousness & conflict. very frustrating. as i think about things, though, it occurs to me that our short works many not be totally legitimate links: their linking policy states:
"An article about a book ... should link to the actual book," but there is a big effort to avoid wikipedia becoming a "link farm" ... and links to say, indiv poems on a poets page, may not make the cut.

anyway, here was my follow-up to jimbo wales:
well, it looks like I jumped too soon to accept the Mel Etitis proposal: librivox volunteers didn't react very well and there's a fair bit of disenchantment over there about wikipedia right now. This is probably a drop in the bucket wrt wikipedia's significant challenges, but it's unfortunate that a big online community, based on wikipedia's ideals, and working towards the same goals, should be transformed from great wikipedia boosters, to a group many of whom seem to be saying a version of: "my opinion of Wikipedia is much less right now than it was yesterday." Tho I do realize that this was just a debate with one admin, not all of wikipedia, but disenchantment seems to be the pervasive reaction among core LV volunteers at the moment. which is too bad. and what that means is there aren't any ready LV volunteers to post links to appropriate wikipedia pages (talk or otherwise) -- at the moment, anyway, though that may change. Our cataloging process is kind of arduous; we had a step in there to add the relevant link in wp. Looks as though that step is gone now; and perhaps it contravened wp rules. (a solution would be to inform some non-LVer wp editor when we have a new file and let them add it if they wish).

So I guess it's now up to the wikipedia community to decide whether the LV links should be there or not, and if they should, who/how they should get there. for reference, here is the LV catalog page:

http://librivox.org/catalog

There *is* a wikipeida policy question here, though, worth looking at, re: linking:
wikipedia has prescriptive and proscriptive policies about links. The prescriptive says: "an article about a book ... should link to the actual book," (see external_links) ie if there's a gutenberg text, (or I would argue, a LV recording) , ie the "actual book," it should be linked from the article. The proscriptive policy says, among other things, that, "Wikipedia is not a mirror or a repository of links, images, or media files." So in deciding whether or not a link like this ought or not to be included, it seems to me the process should be: "is it the actual book"? Yes --> include it; No --> then evaluate based on other criteria.

Perhaps I am wrong. There's a question of process over content (ie who can add the link, versus whether the link should be there); and the claim (from the admin) seems to be that process wins over content. Mackinaw 14:31, 13 March 2006 (UTC)
thistlechick
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Post by thistlechick »

Hugh, Thank you for letting them know how some of us are feeling over here...

you might also consider pointing out to them that there has been some question over whether Librivox should include links to wikipedia (i.e. the letter from the "off" librarian)... but that's probably a whole different conversation.

...and what's Project Gutenberg's policy about linking to wikipedia articles? many of their authors are cross-referenced with wikipedia... is this comprehensive or arbitrary?

just thinking out loud =)
~ Betsie
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
kri
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Post by kri »

hugh wrote:anyway, here was my follow-up to jimbo wales:
I think that sums it up really well Hugh. I think I've reached a level of acceptance of all this. If Wikipedia thinks links to Librivox recordings are valuable, they'll add them. If they don't, its their loss in my opinion. It's not like we're trying to make money off the people downloading our recordings! If two, or two hundred download the recordings, we've still done a great thing.
hugh
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Post by hugh »

just for the record, and not that it matters, wikipedia is not even in the top 30 of our referrers.
thistlechick
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Post by thistlechick »

hugh wrote:just for the record, and not that it matters, wikipedia is not even in the top 30 of our referrers.
heh.. you were reading my mind... I was just thinking this morning that we haven't seen the list of top referrers lately... could we get an update on those? =)
~ Betsie
Multiple projects lead to multiple successes!
LibraryLady
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Post by LibraryLady »

thistlechick wrote:
hugh wrote:just for the record, and not that it matters, wikipedia is not even in the top 30 of our referrers.
heh.. you were reading my mind... I was just thinking this morning that we haven't seen the list of top referrers lately... could we get an update on those? =)
I was wondering that exact thing myself! But thanks Hugh, for speaking for all of us in your reply. I figure it's one less step in the catalog process and more time for volunteers to record instead of edit wikipedia. If wikipedia wants to add the links, they can, but I don't see any reason for us to do more work to contribute to a project that doesn't want us to. Plus the fact that we don't get many people coming from there, I figure to heck with it, we're doing just fine on our own!
Annie Coleman Rothenberg
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hugh
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Post by hugh »

ok, so finally I've been in discussions with reasonable, non-pedantic, wikipedia admin. we -- like everybody -- are free to make links, but there are some specific guidelines about what's a good link, and what isn't, that we should be careful with. lest we trigger the spam radar. details to follow.

so let's give wikipedia a little rest for now. and remember that we just had a fight with one of hundreds admins, and he is not wikipedia as a whole.
LibraryLady
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Post by LibraryLady »

Right you are, Hugh. Let us know what develops and I'll do deep breathing exercises in the meantime. ;)
Annie Coleman Rothenberg
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"I hear the sound I love, the sound of the human voice." ~Whitman
kri
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Post by kri »

I read the reasonable discussion (which would have been better to start with!) and am so relieved. I was probably way too invested in this situation, but I am generally way too invested in small things as such. I think that the level of impartiality that Wikipedia aims for is ridiculously crazy, although I guess we can't speak. We want to record ALL works in the public domain.
Yakumo
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Post by Yakumo »

I am teribly bad at giving an organized and well formed argument, but here goes...

The principle of wikipedia is that through the contributions and opinions of many, they will be able to reach a sort of perfection. Their Philosophy is that, with so many diffrent people from all walks of life contributing their veiws to a project, they will reach a state of ideal neutrality in their articles.

to help illistrate this point, The Federaliists who wanted the constitution to be ratified in this country. said that the formation of factions within the country would infact be benificial, as they would eventually cancel each other out and prevent any one group from coming to power above all others. This principle applies in the same way to opinion.

Diffrence of opinion is a good thing. By having a team of people systematically adding links to wikipedia, they are promoting their cause, regardless of weather it is a good thing or not.

By systematically placing links to all librivox material on wikipedia, we are: pushing our ajenda, so to speak, reagardless of what it is we are promoting.

The idea that many people would link to librivox material if they thought that it was valuable is a completly valid idea. Wikipedia wants to give as much power as it can to the collective so that many people, as oposed to a select few- with convictions for what they precive as valuable, can decide what they consider important.

As your corespondent pointed out, if one person--or a group of people, decided with conviction, that it was their duty to inform the world of a great resourfce called "project gutenberg" and did so systematically posting links to every project gutenberg ebook, then wikipedia would have the same objections that it does to librivox.

The reason that wikipedia does not have an objection to the posting of project guenberg links, is because it is not systematized or contrived by any one person, or group of people, thus, the collectives reasons for posting such material cannot be disputed.

In order for librivox to thrive on wikipedia and elseware, its popularity and worth has to come about naturally. If what librivox is doing is something of value, then it should eventually come to be realized intrinsicly by many peole, just as project gutenberg and open source operating systems like linux have come to be apreciated.

Let me add, that--as I have already emphatically expressed--I think that what librivox is doing is fantastic, but we need to give others a chance to think so as well. Once that has happened, links to librivox recordings, will be as common as links to gutenberg, and we will no longer have to worry about promoting our cause.
hugh
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Post by hugh »

so, results of discussions:

the summary is that because of neutrality & point-of-view concerns, a primary policy of wikipedia is that no one from a particular site/organization should post links/or write about that organization site etc. this takes precedence, apparently, over other policies such as: "articles about a book ... should link to the book." (note that the proper wikipedia procedure if you are affiliated is to post links to the Talk section of an article, and let other editors make the changes if they see fit).

so by having an "add link to wikipedia" step in our cataloging process, we were violating this policy, and had in fact systematized this violation. and this policy trumps (all?) other policies. hence the problem. if we DO wish to keep this step in our process, we can post to the Talk pages of the article. let's let things cool down a bit, and then decide later if we want to put that in process.

so the problem is not the links themselves. the problem is that it is a fundamental policy that one should not write/link about one's own organization in wikipedia. (certainly that gets violated all the time, but we as an organization should not make violating it part of our cataloging system).

now, it would have been nice to get a coherent and polite explanation of this saturday evening rather than monday evening, but what can you do? we had bits of the puzzle given to us, but they were not explained properly. water under bridge. one guy at wikipedia. history now.

so: for now, one less step in catalog process.

But if you do feel, from time to time, like making links to LV recordings from wikipedia, who am I to stop you? here are a few things to remember:
*wikipedia is careful not to become a "link farm"; they want only appropriate links on appropriate pages
*a link from the book/poem etc page to the LV recording is good
*a link from the author page to the LV recording is NOT good
*a link from a page about, say, a collection of poems to ONE poem at LV is NOT good
*log in
*avoid adding just links; better to add content as well
*DEFINITELY avoid adding many links from many different pages, all to one site, all at once - this sets off linkspam radar

and we may consider implementing the post-to-Talk step into our cataloging.

by the way, in a VERY funny coincidence, someone (i think elaine herself) started adding links from wikipedia articles to the relevant www.publicdomainpodcast.blogspot.com podcasts ... this was caught by the same guy who sent the original message to kri ... and he assumed it was us again! after all that. but that got cleared up.
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