Missing Articles — Low-hanging Fruit?

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by EricBarbour » Tue Mar 25, 2014 10:18 pm

thekohser wrote:
Hex wrote:And now... behold, magic!
I dare you to practice such magic on Graffiti4hire (T-H-L).
And I dare you both to confront Ronhjones, an employee of Johnson Matthey, for watching and editing the articles about his employer, especially their Alfa Aesar (T-H-L) division, an article he created and was the primary author of. Then you can also ask him why a user called "Johnson Matthey Company" did this last summer, and was not blocked or even noticed.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Tue Mar 25, 2014 10:54 pm

Poetlister wrote:Who's IP 173.87.171.188? Friend of yours? :D
Not that I know of. They certainly seem to have a cheeky sense of humor.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Wed Mar 26, 2014 3:37 am

Poetlister wrote:
thekohser wrote:
Hex wrote:And now... behold, magic!
I dare you to practice such magic on Graffiti4hire (T-H-L).
That's different; the other one was a Prod delete; this is an AfD delete.
Yes, an AfD that ran 5-3 in favor of keeping.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Wed Mar 26, 2014 2:23 pm

thekohser wrote:
Hex wrote:And now... behold, magic!
I dare you to practice such magic on Graffiti4hire (T-H-L).
Or indeed Graffiti4hire (T-H-L), your original version that was speedied and then recreated by Silver seren?

Looking at the AfD, it was deleted on the grounds that the references given in the article didn't cover the company in sufficient detail to establish its notability. Looking at it now, I can't really disagree with that - sorry.
thekohser wrote: Yes, an AfD that ran 5-3 in favor of keeping.
Of which 3 of those 5 were sleeper socks....
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:33 pm

Hex wrote:...deleted on the grounds that the references given in the article didn't cover the company in sufficient detail to establish its notability. Looking at it now, I can't really disagree with that - sorry.
Hex, what's sorry is that there are perhaps 10,000 articles about small/medium-sized businesses on Wikipedia that demonstrate less than one-third of the sourced detail that Graffiti4Hire did, and yet those articles persist. I would estimate that 3,000 of those were predominantly written by paid editors or employees, yet those articles persist. The main reason the Graffiti4Hire article was deleted (if we are to be honest) was because it was found out that I was associated with its construction. So, you can tut-tut about sources all you want, but that's not a consistent explanation, given the rest of Wikipedia.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Wed Mar 26, 2014 6:53 pm

thekohser wrote: Hex, what's sorry is that there are perhaps 10,000 articles about small/medium-sized businesses on Wikipedia that demonstrate less than one-third of the sourced detail that Graffiti4Hire did, and yet those articles persist. I would estimate that 3,000 of those were predominantly written by paid editors or employees, yet those articles persist. The main reason the Graffiti4Hire article was deleted (if we are to be honest) was because it was found out that I was associated with its construction. So, you can tut-tut about sources all you want, but that's not a consistent explanation, given the rest of Wikipedia.
I would never claim anything to be consistent across Wikipedia as a whole, and certainly not in the area of articles about business. If I came across an equally-lacking business article at AfD - to be honest, I haven't really paid attention to AfD as an area for years - then I would feel the same way about it. I don't think that the unequal application of sourcing requirements across the segment is fair, either. The Graffiti4Hire article obviously got nobbled because the fact of your involvement with it drew it to people's attention. For all those other little businesses with self-written articles - largely, nobody cares.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Poetlister » Thu Mar 27, 2014 8:56 pm

thekohser wrote:
Poetlister wrote:
thekohser wrote:
Hex wrote:And now... behold, magic!
I dare you to practice such magic on Graffiti4hire (T-H-L).
That's different; the other one was a Prod delete; this is an AfD delete.
Yes, an AfD that ran 5-3 in favor of keeping.
On any interpretation, it's 5-4 because the proposer obviously counts as a delete vote; also, one of the keeps was a weak keep. Anyway, it's a !vote, not a vote, and the closer has to weigh the arguments, not count them. I can't see how this could fairly have been closed as a keep, although a case might be made for a "no consensus".
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Fri Mar 28, 2014 9:00 pm

I am a bit amused that the third-largest Hispanic-owned business in the United States (as measured by 2012 revenue) does not have a Wikipedia article. Also, the very largest Hispanic-owned business in the US doesn't mention anywhere in the Wikipedia article that it is Hispanic-owned.

I would give more detail, but this may be an area for MyWikiBiz to push in future marketing.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Sat Apr 05, 2014 11:36 pm

Loire estuary (T-H-L). You'd think there'd be an article on the estuary of one of Europe's great rivers, but no. Unsurprisingly, the French Wikipedia is not missing it. There also seems to be no English article about semaphore naval watchtowers, another French thing.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Mon Apr 07, 2014 4:03 pm

I hate to suggest any BLPs to Wikipedia, as they then become a millstone around the neck of the BLP victim. However, considering that about 30 million of the American homes that get their Internet over a coaxial cable that was technologically ushered in under the leadership of Thomas Jermoluk and Milo Medin, it's a bit of a surprise to me that neither have a Wikipedia biography.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Jim » Mon Apr 07, 2014 4:06 pm

thekohser wrote:I hate to suggest any BLPs to Wikipedia, as they then become a millstone around the neck of the BLP victim. However, considering that about 30 million of the American homes that get their Internet over a coaxial cable that was technologically ushered in under the leadership of Thomas Jermoluk and Milo Medin, it's a bit of a surprise to me that neither have a Wikipedia biography.
I haven't looked, I promise - but double or quits on the 5 dollars for a stab in the dark? Comcast?

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Mon Apr 07, 2014 5:22 pm

Jim wrote:I haven't looked, I promise - but double or quits on the 5 dollars for a stab in the dark? Comcast?
Not exactly. The @Home Network (T-H-L) was a joint venture, of which Comcast was merely one of several players. Milo's with Google Fiber now, so technically, he's the enemy.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by The Joy » Tue Apr 15, 2014 11:16 pm

There's no Battle of Myikyina (T-H-L).

http://ww2db.com/battle_spec.php?battle_id=143 (Note: The article uses part of Wikipedia as "source.")

To Wikipedia's defense, I (as an American) rarely hear anything about Sino-Japanese/WWII battles never held on a Pacific island. The only exception being the Flying Tigers (T-H-L). I'm fascinated by the "forgotten" (i.e. "rarely discussed in the West") battles of the Eastern Front and the Asian theaters of WWII, but many of those articles are under control by deranged, fanatical nationalists and I'm more wary of trusting any of them than I would any other subject.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by EricBarbour » Wed Apr 16, 2014 8:43 pm

One would think that Wikipedia, of all places, would have something about an archaeological site in New Mexico called "Blue J".
But there is nothing. It was even in the news today.

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/a ... 0314000648
http://news.yahoo.com/drone-images-reve ... 18585.html
http://westerndigs.org/hidden-architect ... ew-mexico/
http://web.ics.purdue.edu/~kjvaughn/chaco.html

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Fri Apr 25, 2014 9:36 pm

Surprising that what is considered New Zealand's most luxurious hotel is not included in Wikipedia. Get going, WikiMinions!

Blanket Bay Luxury Lodge (T-H-L)
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Johnny Au » Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:37 pm

Criticism of The Simpsons (T-H-L) redirects to the criticism section of The Simpsons (T-H-L). Other similar shows have their own criticism articles; The Simpsons was heavily criticized when the show was new, though to be fair, The Simpsons is one of the tamest by today's standards.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Kelly Martin » Tue Apr 29, 2014 6:40 pm

Johnny Au wrote:Criticism of The Simpsons (T-H-L) redirects to the criticism section of The Simpsons (T-H-L). Other similar shows have their own criticism articles.
That's just because it's at "stage 4" of the "criticism removal churn process": Stage 1, move all criticisms into a "criticism of" section. Stage 2, split the criticisms off to their own article. Stage 3, get the criticism article trimmed as "one-sided". Stage 4, have the criticism article deleted and redirected back to the article.

Some articles have been through this cycle dozens of times.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Johnny Au » Tue Apr 29, 2014 8:17 pm

Kelly Martin wrote:
Johnny Au wrote:Criticism of The Simpsons (T-H-L) redirects to the criticism section of The Simpsons (T-H-L). Other similar shows have their own criticism articles.
That's just because it's at "stage 4" of the "criticism removal churn process": Stage 1, move all criticisms into a "criticism of" section. Stage 2, split the criticisms off to their own article. Stage 3, get the criticism article trimmed as "one-sided". Stage 4, have the criticism article deleted and redirected back to the article.

Some articles have been through this cycle dozens of times.
Wrong. See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?ti ... on=history

Note that the article had never been actually created.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Mancunium » Tue Apr 29, 2014 11:27 pm

New Calhoun College master:
you can look her up

Yale Alumni Magazine, 28 April 2014 link
If you look up "Julia Adams" on Wikipedia, you'll find an article about actor Julie Adams, star of TV and movie Westerns in the 1940s, ’50s, and ’60s. You won't find the Yale sociologist and deputy provost, who's just been named the new master of Calhoun College. To be sure, not all of Yale's deputy provosts have Wikipedia entries. But Adams's absence from the online encyclopedia is a bit ironic, given that she's the co-prinicipal investigator on a National Science Foundation–funded study of “Wikipedia and the Democratization of Academic Knowledge.” “The world's single most important reference tool,” Wikipedia “was supposed to have democratized knowledge,” the study abstract says. “Yet an emerging body of research indicates that Wikipedia suffers from systematic gender bias.” Adams and her co-PI want to find out why. [...]
Collaborative Research: Wikipedia and the Democratization of Academic Knowledge
National Science Foundartion: link
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Poetlister » Wed Apr 30, 2014 9:42 pm

Maybe it's just as well that she doesn't have a BLP ... :hmmm:
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Mancunium » Wed Apr 30, 2014 10:31 pm

Poetlister wrote:Maybe it's just as well that she doesn't have a BLP ... :hmmm:
Calhoun College to welcome a new master: Julia Adams
Yale News, 24 April 2014 link
[...] Adams is a leading historical sociologist who teaches and conducts research in the areas of state formation, social theory and knowledge, gender and family, and early modern European politics. She especially focuses on the changing historical forms of social organization, ranging from styles of political delegation in colonialism and empire, to shifting representations of academic disciplines — as in her current National Science Foundation-funded research on gender, the humanities and sciences, and Wikipedia. [...] Adams served as president of the Social Science History Association 2008-2009 and chair of the Global and Transnational section of the American Sociological Association 2012-2013. At Yale she has chaired the Department of Sociology and directed the Division of the Social Sciences as well as the International Affairs Council and Fox Fellowship Program, both at the MacMillan Center. She is on the steering committee of CHESS (Center for Historical Enquiry & the Social Sciences). Adams is the author of numerous publications, and her book “The Familial State: Ruling Families and Merchant Capitalism in Early Modern Europe” won the Gaddis Smith Book Prize. Her work has twice won the Barrington Moore Jr. Award for Best Article in comparative and historical sociology, given by the American Sociological Association. [...]
If Ms Adams had been a runner-up in a Miss Alaska pageant, or had appeared in a pornographic movie, the ignorant male chauvinist pigs of Wikipedia would have honoured her with a 50-citation BLP.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Cla68 » Tue May 13, 2014 7:52 am

Port of Gwangyang, South Korea. There is an article on the city, but it barely mentions the port. As of 2011, the port is the 35th busiest in the world by volume. More significantly, it is one of only 16 or so ports that can handle Maersk's EEE Super-Panamax container ships and is thus on Maersk's Europe-Asia shipping route.

Notice that most of the sites I linked to are private industry sites, so it would be hard for WP to write a complete article on the port even if it wanted to.

Note: If a port says it can handle a EEE container ship on its website, that may be a little misleading. Even if a port has a water depth and terminal length sufficient to dock the ship, its cranes may not be large enough to be able to stack the ship to capacity or unload it if it is packed to capacity. I think there are only three or four ports which currently are able to do so. They have to have "Super-post-panamax" cranes. I kind of doubt that any of this is explained in the related WP articles.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Cla68 » Wed May 14, 2014 12:20 am

Container Insight Weekly, published by Drewry which appears to the Jane's of the container shipping industry. Since the majority of international, trans-oceanic trade is conducted by ship, mainly container ship, then trade publications and industry advisors like these probably should be sufficiently notable to have articles in WP. I have noticed that the suite of articles in WP related to the container shipping industry are sorely lacking in information. Apparently, the container shipping executives and consultants are too busy actually getting the world's merchandise moved to waste time making these articles in WP.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Wed May 14, 2014 2:01 am

Cla68 wrote:Apparently, the container shipping executives and consultants are too busy actually getting the world's merchandise moved to waste time making these articles in WP.
No, they're just too busy to create a User account before editing.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Sun May 25, 2014 2:06 pm

Major General Kenneth B. Wolfe, the second commander of the XX Bomber Command (T-H-L) in China, between Henry H. Arnold (T-H-L) and Curtis LeMay (T-H-L), does not have a Wikipedia biography.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by EricBarbour » Sun May 25, 2014 7:48 pm

Kelly Martin wrote:That's just because it's at "stage 4" of the "criticism removal churn process": Stage 1, move all criticisms into a "criticism of" section. Stage 2, split the criticisms off to their own article. Stage 3, get the criticism article trimmed as "one-sided". Stage 4, have the criticism article deleted and redirected back to the article.

Some articles have been through this cycle dozens of times.
Please, don't remind me. I wonder if we could have a competition to find the worst, longest split-redirect-reintegrate battle. Unlike stupid editwars, these things are slow-motion, rarely noticed, and go on for years.

We also need a new acronym to describe it. (Too many already, I know.)

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Sun May 25, 2014 7:54 pm

Cla68 wrote:I have noticed that the suite of articles in WP related to the container shipping industry are sorely lacking in information.
You're not the only one. From a year ago:
DanMurphy wrote: For years, when I've discussed technology with people, I've often suggested that the Container ship (T-H-L) (or perhaps the Container terminal (T-H-L)) were the most profound innovations of the last half of the 20th century (only half in jest). Compare those articles to, say, Internet (T-H-L).
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Poetlister » Mon May 26, 2014 9:20 am

Hex wrote:
Cla68 wrote:I have noticed that the suite of articles in WP related to the container shipping industry are sorely lacking in information.
You're not the only one. From a year ago:
DanMurphy wrote: For years, when I've discussed technology with people, I've often suggested that the Container ship (T-H-L) (or perhaps the Container terminal (T-H-L)) were the most profound innovations of the last half of the 20th century (only half in jest). Compare those articles to, say, Internet (T-H-L).
By definition, all contributors to WP know a bit about the Internet. How many people here have visited a container terminal?
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Zoloft » Mon May 26, 2014 11:08 am

Poetlister wrote:
Hex wrote:
Cla68 wrote:I have noticed that the suite of articles in WP related to the container shipping industry are sorely lacking in information.
You're not the only one. From a year ago:
DanMurphy wrote: For years, when I've discussed technology with people, I've often suggested that the Container ship (T-H-L) (or perhaps the Container terminal (T-H-L)) were the most profound innovations of the last half of the 20th century (only half in jest). Compare those articles to, say, Internet (T-H-L).
By definition, all contributors to WP know a bit about the Internet. How many people here have visited a container terminal?
*raises hand*

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Mon May 26, 2014 12:07 pm

Poetlister wrote:How many people here have visited a container terminal?
How many Wikipedians have visited a Moscow massage parlor? Or a South African meat shop?
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Mon May 26, 2014 2:45 pm

For all the fun talk over the missing articles, you got to be shitting me that you can only come up with foreign, obscure or other such individuals and topics that do not even get coverage in Britannica. Great measuring stick - why not just hit up the missing article WP page and pick at random about missing vehicles, theologians and civil structures? Only a handful of people even work in those editing areas to begin with.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Mon May 26, 2014 4:54 pm

Flameau wrote:For all the fun talk over the missing articles, you got to be shitting me that you can only come up with foreign, obscure or other such individuals and topics that do not even get coverage in Britannica. Great measuring stick - why not just hit up the missing article WP page and pick at random about missing vehicles, theologians and civil structures? Only a handful of people even work in those editing areas to begin with.
I would venture a guess that every topic that receives coverage in Britannica probably has a corresponding article in Wikipedia. But then, "Wikipedia is not paper", so what's your point, Flamer? I guess we are "shitting you", after all.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by EricBarbour » Mon May 26, 2014 5:07 pm

Flameau wrote:Only a handful of people even work in those editing areas to begin with.
Because, of course, cartoons and comic books and video gaming are FAR more important than "those editing areas", right?

If you're trolling, this is pathetic. Start over.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Mon May 26, 2014 5:21 pm

Flameau wrote:...foreign...
Wikipedia is not the Encyclopedia Americana, so you need to think again about that.
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Hex » Mon May 26, 2014 11:52 pm

On a related topic to shipping containers, compare the Wikipedia article Pallet (T-H-L) to this absolutely fascinating* history of the pallet.

* Maybe not to everyone
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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by tarantino » Tue May 27, 2014 12:44 am

Hex wrote:On a related topic to shipping containers, compare the Wikipedia article Pallet (T-H-L) to this absolutely fascinating* history of the pallet.

* Maybe not to everyone
WikiProject Containers has been pretty quiet lately, now that Hillbillyholiday, DracoEssentialis and Delicious carbuncle have gone silent. The only active members seem to be Pkgx (T-C-L) and Northamerica1000 (T-C-L).

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Zoloft » Tue May 27, 2014 1:16 am

Hex wrote:On a related topic to shipping containers, compare the Wikipedia article Pallet (T-H-L) to this absolutely fascinating* history of the pallet.

* Maybe not to everyone
It was fascinating to me!

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Tue May 27, 2014 4:25 am

thekohser wrote:I would venture a guess that every topic that receives coverage in Britannica probably has a corresponding article in Wikipedia. But then, "Wikipedia is not paper", so what's your point, Flamer? I guess we are "shitting you", after all.
Britannica still has substantial content and topics that Wikipedia has as stubs or nothing at all, but yes - call me what you will. "Low-hanging fruit" is an expression, but so many of these observations are like picking up pebbles in a gravel pit - inconsequential. Aside from missing hundreds of kings and queens, entire periods of architecture and interior design. I'm all for pointing out the problems so that they can be rectified, but considering Wikipedia does not even have articles on the ministry or key officials of most governments - did you expect anything less? Right now, even cursory on-wiki state: "Estimated figure of notable articles needed to cover all human knowledge is over 96,000,000"

Wikipedia - as of this moment - is less than 5% of its minimum estimated size and is less than 0.01% complete. For an encyclopedia that doesn't even cover common crafts, agricultural practices... I just find it comical that we are devoting any time to debating the flaws of a system that adds about 1000 articles a day.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Kelly Martin » Tue May 27, 2014 5:36 am

Flameau wrote:I just find it comical that we are devoting any time to debating the flaws of a system that adds about 1000 articles a day.
How is that comical? Don't you think it makes sense to find and fix the flaws in that system while it's still small, instead of when it's much larger and the scope of damage is that much greater?

Of course, we all know that Wikipedia will never reach that 96 million article zenith; it'll never even get close. Even if it manages to maintain 1000 articles a day, that'll mean it ends up only adding about another three to five million articles before its death in 2025, well short of the 96 million article "endpoint". And I very much doubt the article creation rate will be maintained as the community implodes in on itself.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Tue May 27, 2014 6:04 am

By all means, I've done more than my fair of fixing on Wikipedia, but it seems the first reaction to criticism of "the critics of Wikipedia" was to label me a troll, just like I was a "member of Arbcom" the last time my opinion differed. Having 200,000 stubs on things is better than having 200,000 less articles - one is easier to grow - but this thread is not so much about fixing the flaws as it is taking pot shots from a concealed position.

1. All this pointing and observation is counter productive to those who value anonymity. They will not contribute lest they be labeled followers of Wikipediocracy. Hence, my refrain from adding to it.
2. Despite an entire section(s) of Wikipedia dedicated to acknowledging and fixing this issue - why am I the first to actually point it out?
3. Most people making the observations are unable or unwilling to actually fix these articles.

Sorry, but I just expected more when a simple search shows plenty of red links for rulers and inventions that impacted millions of lives. This should be more on articles that go missing because of bad AFD or Prods that never should have been accepted. I see "Yamboree" as one PROD example, but instead of finishing or submitting the article to be improved - it remains in danger of deletion again.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Zoloft » Tue May 27, 2014 6:50 am

Flameau wrote:By all means, I've done more than my fair of fixing on Wikipedia, but it seems the first reaction to criticism of "the critics of Wikipedia" was to label me a troll, just like I was a "member of Arbcom" the last time my opinion differed. Having 200,000 stubs on things is better than having 200,000 less articles - one is easier to grow - but this thread is not so much about fixing the flaws as it is taking pot shots from a concealed position.

1. All this pointing and observation is counter productive to those who value anonymity. They will not contribute lest they be labeled followers of Wikipediocracy. Hence, my refrain from adding to it.
2. Despite an entire section(s) of Wikipedia dedicated to acknowledging and fixing this issue - why am I the first to actually point it out?
3. Most people making the observations are unable or unwilling to actually fix these articles.

Sorry, but I just expected more when a simple search shows plenty of red links for rulers and inventions that impacted millions of lives. This should be more on articles that go missing because of bad AFD or Prods that never should have been accepted. I see "Yamboree" as one PROD example, but instead of finishing or submitting the article to be improved - it remains in danger of deletion again.
That's a good point. Do you feel it deserves a blog post here? Would you like to help us write one?

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Tue May 27, 2014 7:05 am

He's making a basic error in logic. He bandies the claim that the total number of articles required to record the "sum of all human knowledge" is 96 million, and then immediately concludes that Wikipedia is therefore only "5 percent of its minimum estimated size." Even if we accept the 96 million figure (which, let's face it, is just a guess made by someone who probably insists on quantifying everything for no good reason), it won't be Wikipedia that stores all that stuff, assuming anything ever does. Wikipedia can't be sustained at the level it's at now - if it doubled in size over the next 5 years it would be a complete catastrophe, and it would still be only 10 percent of this "minimum estimated size."

So yeah, there may someday be a reference work that's as exhaustive and comprehensive as all that, but it won't be Wikipedia. And for all we know, trying to make Wikipedia into something it can't possibly become (by adding more articles, etc.) may ultimately be a colossal waste of effort that only makes it harder for a properly-designed encyclopedia project to reach that point.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by HRIP7 » Tue May 27, 2014 2:39 pm

Flameau wrote:For all the fun talk over the missing articles, you got to be shitting me that you can only come up with foreign, obscure or other such individuals and topics that do not even get coverage in Britannica. Great measuring stick - why not just hit up the missing article WP page and pick at random about missing vehicles, theologians and civil structures? Only a handful of people even work in those editing areas to begin with.
It would certainly be more illuminating to pick articles that are well covered in existing encyclopedias, and aren't in Wikipedia. (Probably a whole lot of stuff in linguistics, to start with.)

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Tue May 27, 2014 2:45 pm

Thanks, Zoloft, but I am not quite ready to do such a thing. Though there is strong evidence to a band of editors who are out to remove fictional topics wholesale and are using meatpuppets and coordinating in a manner similar to a previous blog post.

Midsize Jake, the estimation is arbitrary and is not to be taken as a "done" claim - but I see it as a "minimum" matter. Strangely enough, Wikipedia making 1 million articles was already far into the "we can't handle it" territory, but vandalism is down and the speed and accuracy of vandal reversions have greatly improved. The wikifying and formatting of more than 4 million pages are well-maintained even if the content is not. Several major projects - by individual editors, not groups - have allowed a vast and completely disproportionate amount of maintenance to be done. Thankfully, content only needs to be added and not actively maintained for many historical subjects.

Even if Wikipedia is not that end-point massive reference work, just as Wikipedia has absorbed the content of its predecessors so should be Wikipedia's fate. However, Wikipedia is more damaged by its deletion of good content by ignorance or spite. With so much damage being done, the act of reversing or preventing it becomes as important as correcting the culture of Wikipedia.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by HRIP7 » Tue May 27, 2014 3:02 pm

Flameau wrote:Thankfully, content only needs to be added and not actively maintained for many historical subjects.
Here is one of the exceptions (Robert Klotz (T-H-L)). That bit of school-boy vandalism lasted half a year.

There are a few more apt history examples in Wikipedia:List_of_hoaxes_on_Wikipedia (T-H-L).

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by thekohser » Tue May 27, 2014 3:21 pm

Flameau wrote:...vandalism is down and the speed and accuracy of vandal reversions have greatly improved...
Do you have any actual quantitative evidence of these claims?
"...making nonsensical connections and culminating in feigned surprise, since 2006..."

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Tue May 27, 2014 4:17 pm

thekohser wrote:
Flameau wrote:...vandalism is down and the speed and accuracy of vandal reversions have greatly improved...
Do you have any actual quantitative evidence of these claims?
This is a good read. Wikipedia Vandalism Detection: Combining Natural Language, Metadata, and Reputation Features An old study from 2009: Study of vandalism survival times An older study: Study 1

I know its a bit indepth, but this is the best document I found in a quick search. West's dissertation And of course a tracker to watch: Wmchart

Even the general plotting shows a decline from 250,000 vandal entries a month (roughly 7% of all edits). Though earlier studies suggested a much higher rate and much slower correction rate. The old bot detection system was about 50% accurate and the newer is about 86% thanks to machine learning, but it supplements human editing. Cluebot is out of date, but there is work on the next generation. The rate of time for obvious vandalism to be reverted has gone down (a good thing), but its far from perfect. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I think it is a good rebuttal.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Midsize Jake » Tue May 27, 2014 4:39 pm

Flameau wrote:...it supplements human editing. Cluebot is out of date, but there is work on the next generation. The rate of time for obvious vandalism to be reverted has gone down (a good thing), but its far from perfect. Sorry if this is off-topic, but I think it is a good rebuttal.
If you ask me, you actually had a good-enough point to begin with, but you're getting bogged down in numbers a bit. I don't think anyone is saying that the improvement of automated bad-edit-reversion bots is a bad thing or even that they're not improving fast enough. One might say that improvement in this area will lead to increases in "subtle" vandalism, which is much less easily quantifiable (not to mention dealt-with), but that's also off-topic.

To get back to the original point, you were saying that this thread is basically silly because there are so many not-yet-covered subjects, singling them out as "missing" is like pointing out missing spots in a tiled bathroom floor when the guy tiling the floor has only been at it for 5 minutes. You used the phrase "picking up pebbles in a gravel pit," which I'm going to assume means basically the same thing when I say these are barely half-worthy analogies. It's true that there are plenty of not-yet-covered subjects, but it's a reference work, not a gravel pit - in a reference work, you should prioritize even if you've given up on being selective and/or discriminating in what you're including. Wikipedia can set priorities, but it can't enforce them because obviously that would have a negative effect on recruitment. And if you can't enforce them, then people are going to ignore them for the most part.

So this thread seems to me to be saying mostly, "if there's an article on X and Y, why no article on Z," and it's usually a valid question, and there are different reasons in each case, and sometimes those reasons are interesting, possibly to the point where Wikipedians could learn something from the point being made. But if they don't care about prioritization, and I personally believe they don't, then sure, they're going to think threads like this are silly. But hey, who cares what they think.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Flameau » Tue May 27, 2014 5:26 pm

True, I diminished the impact of my statement with that second post. While there is no global prioritization in Wikipedia's chaos, the stigma of Wikipediocracy is hinders its resolution. Yes, this thread points out a problem, but who's going to let people trace their contributions from a Wikipediocracy push? Criticism about Wikipedia's organization and operation provoke discussion, but William Busch does not yet have an article and Pallet still does not have a history. Consumer economy is still unedited since thekohser pointed it out. In a rare case, Gottlob Espenlaub was created. If you want to bring meaningful recognition, or at least attempt it, bring it to Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement (WP:TAFI)'s attention. Or just go an make it yourself.

If you notice a notable subject being deleted by some idiot - call them out on it or fix it before hand. WP:AFD is the hive of deletionists, but I don't think anyone advocates running around trying to put out fires started by broken processes. Like RFA reform, it is a noose around Wikipedia's collective neck.

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Re: Missing articles

Unread post by Kelly Martin » Tue May 27, 2014 5:33 pm

Flameau wrote:Yes, this thread points out a problem, but who's going to let people trace their contributions from a Wikipediocracy push? Criticism about Wikipedia's organization and operation provoke discussion, but William Busch does not yet have an article and Pallet still does not have a history. Consumer economy is still unedited since thekohser pointed it out. In a rare case, Gottlob Espenlaub was created. If you want to bring meaningful recognition, or at least attempt it, bring it to Wikipedia:Today's articles for improvement (WP:TAFI)'s attention. Or just go an make it yourself.
I think the broader problem is that Wikipedia's community insists on branding Wikipediocracy with such a vile stigma that editors not dare edit articles mentioned here for fear of being cast out of the light. The problem here is not ours, it is theirs. If this thread acts to illuminate this particular sickness within Wikipedia's culture, then it has served its purpose, in spades.

We don't really expect the articles we highlight here to be fixed. Our purpose here is to educate the public on Wikipedia's shortcomings; we are not particularly attempting to influence Wikipedians or improve Wikipedia.

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