Talk:Ars Technica

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

You have new messages (last change).
Articles for deletion This article was nominated for deletion on 16/3/2007. The result of the discussion was keep.

This topic contains controversial issues, some of which have reached a consensus for approach and neutrality, and some of which may be disputed. Should you wish to make any substantial changes or additions;
  • Before making any such substantial changes, please carefully read the discussion-page dialogue.
  • During any such changes, please be careful to cite reputable sources supporting them, and when submitting your edit, please include an accurate and concise description in the "Edit summary" field-box.
  • After making any such changes, please also carefully describe the reason(s) for any such changes on the discussion-page.
Archive

Archives
Archive 1
Archive 2
Archive 3
Archive 4
Archive 5
Archive 6

Contents

[edit] Requests

Any chance one of you Latin buffs (or at least someone who knows more than me) could add the correct pronunciation of "Ars Technica" to the article? Thanks! Dylanmcd 18:13, 1 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] RfC about Tatsuma's Reverts

I wasn't sure how to proceed, so I filed this RfC: Wikipedia:Requests for comment/Tatsuma. I would appreciate any comments, especially from people willing to endorse the basis for the dispute so we can try to get some resolution about the revert warring. Reverts by people who aren't even willing to discuss content on the Talk page are unhelpful to everyone. Thanks. - Debuskjt 03:58, 31 August 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for doing that. Tsetna 17:19, 4 September 2006 (UTC)
I saw your alert and agree that this looks like the right move. Please keep discussion civil. Also you might want to request a checkuser on the suspected sockpuppets. Durova 14:28, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] wow, the Criticism disappeared

Look at that, all the criticism disappeared. that is certainly convenient. understandable, almost, especially for a website that generates as much money as ars does. ($50,000 a month) it makes sense that tsetna would want to protect his income. El jefe04 17:47, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I moved the criticism into the article. It was not removed, but put into proper context, and was clearly documented in the edit history of the page. If you oppose that WP:Bold edit, you can discuss it in the section directly below this one, as Tsetna also disagrees with my removal of the Criticism section. - Debuskjt 17:54, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
for the record, i removed the criticism of the forum search, as the reference was from the forum. this is what we agreed on, right? El jefe04 21:11, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Location of Criticisms

I vote that the criticisms have their own section. This [1] isn’t a guideline, is it? Mixing it into the article raises serious POV issues in my opinion. Tsetna 15:55, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

I think it's fine the way it is. Agree with Debuskjt.El jefe04 07:20, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
It's not policy, but I think it still stands as a good guideline when discussing criticism. Doesn't keeping it separate also raise POV issues? If anything, I'd think a separate ==Criticism== section would probably provide undue weight to minority criticism, which is undesirable per WP:NPOV#Undue weight. In fact, I'd argue that it's a means of POV forking without actually creating a separate article, and provides a magnet for non-notable, biased viewpoints. And I have a hard time understanding how almost the exact same verbage within the text of the article proper raises any POV issue that is avoided by shunting it elsewhere. An entire subsection devoted to what essentially amounts to a handful of user gripes seems a bit much. - Debuskjt 17:18, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Just wanted to add, these are all attributable criticisms, too. Hannibal acknowledges the political content and moves to justify it against criticism, Caesar says himself that the Ars search performs badly, Cynthia Brumfield calls into question the editorial process at Ars, which is all in line with WP:NPOV#Attributing and substantiating biased statements. Better attribution to Hannibal and Caesar would help, and they could probably all be rephrased to better avoid POV, particularly "...the dissatisfaction of some readers," but that issue exists regardless of where the criticism is housed and won't change by moving it back to ==Criticism==. I hope that what I'm saying makes sense. - Debuskjt 17:31, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
A separate criticism section does draw more attention to the criticisms, but that’s fine if the criticisms are accurate! The POV problems relate to the weight they are given when they are worked into the text. The first paragraph about the Ars Front Page has four sentences, three of them criticism. Tsetna 18:39, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
Once again, I just don't agree. It makes sense to me that criticism of the News section of Ars belongs in the context of a discussion of the News section. It just makes sense to me. AFAIK, Wiki has never endorsed any kind of ratio WRT criticism to non-criticism per paragraph, and the labeling of individual sentences as entirely criticism is misleading (in fact, I'd say that the defense of political coverage on Ars doesn't read like criticism at all anymore, and works quite well in the Front Page section). I still fail to see why giving specific "criticisms" even 2 out of 3 sentences in a paragraph concerning news on Ars Technica gives said criticism anymore undue weight when compared to giving it an entire subsection on the page. You can't pick and choose the content of the article like that. It all must be considered as a whole, or it's meaningless. But anyway, the answer to me seems to be to rework the article. To add and edit content until a favorable balance is met. Not to strip out "negative" statements altogether and shunt them to the bottom of the page so we can all pretend as if that changes anything. Obviously, if the consensus is against me on this, I'll yield, but I'm definitely interested to hear what others have to say. - Debuskjt 22:09, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
I am confused. First you suggest that having a separate section is undue weight, but now you are suggesting that a criticism section is just the opposite, a way to bury criticism? Maybe I am missing the point. Looking at Digg, Slashdot, Microsoft, Engadget, and many others, they all have criticism sections. Read the Talk page on the Criticism article, this is an unsettled and controversial issue. To clarify, I did not say that the criticism does not belong. What I object to is its position ino that section which gives it IMHO undue weight. Tomorrow I will try to integrate it a different way and you and others can perhaps tell me if it works or not. Tsetna 00:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
I suppose the issue is now moot, since El jefe04 has now forced the point by removing all content cited by forum postings (regardless of the poster or if the post is a poll), and if it follows if the letter of policy is to be followed to that extreme, the IP Democracy blog citation also has to go. - Debuskjt 20:24, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
All of those articles have criticism sections, yes, but there is more widespread, published criticism of Digg, Slashdot, and Microsoft than there is of Ars Technica (or Engadget; the Criticism section in that article is miniscule and barely worth keeping as a separate section). Let's consider what is said in WP:NPOV#Undue_weight, especially what is said about "tiny-minority" views; is criticism of Ars Technica really that significant in scope? The answer to that is what should be informing the decision to have a separate criticism section or not.
I'm taking a position of neutrality on the integration issue, though I will continue to revert attempts to inject tiny-minority views or factual errors by single-purpose accounts like El Jefe04 if there is no consensus to do so. -/- Warren 00:51, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Adding uncited information

I don't see how adding information with an uncited tag is acceptable. i see that everyone seems to agree that information that references the ars forum should not be included (WP:RS). Now, this strips out a lot of the back and forth about moderation and this and that which is fine with me, but you guys need to understand that it also applies to the rest of the article, not the criticism section. removing only criticism that is cited in the forum (even if the forum post is by a site administrator), but then leaving other information in that relies on citations on the forum is not a consistent approach. either remove both, or leave both, there is no room in the middle. El jefe04 21:09, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

That's fine. And I added back nothing that referenced a forum post. Citing forum guidelines, Terms of Service agreements, FAQs, etc. isn't a violation of WP:RS since the prohibition is on posts to the forum, specifically: "posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as primary or secondary sources." A lot of what you removed weren't references to forum posts. Also, while it is not okay to add content without a source, since you or I didn't add it originally, it is generally considered polite to add {{uncited}} tags to content per Wikipedia:Citing sources#How to ask for citations to draw attention to the error and give editors time to fix them. Also, it is not okay to remove verifiable information or information that has been added back with proper citation under the guise of WP:CITE, which you just did. For instance, the writing staff is easily verifiable from Ars, all moderators are listed on the forum front page, since all the forum names and titles are references to Latin, the list of them in the Posting Guidelines verifies that. If you had clicked on the link to the Columns and the Articles, you would have seen that they do contain overlapping articles.
if you look at the history, i did not remove FAQs or guidelines, I removed unverified information, uncited information, or information that relies on forum postings as a reference. just like has been done by others on the article. you can't just add whatever you want with an {{uncited}} tag, and expect someone else to source it for you. if any of the criticism were added with an {{uncited}} tag, it would be immediately deleted. NPOV would mean that the same standard applies to all information in the article. El jefe04 21:45, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
if the information you are adding is so easily verifiable, then you should not have a problem finding valid, non-forum citations for it. El jefe04 21:53, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
And Ars is not a blog. Aggregate news sites and blogs are not the same thing, and posting material in similar fashion to a blog doesn't a blog make. Unless you are going to introduce evidence to the contrary, I ask that you do not state it again. - Debuskjt 21:31, 9 September 2006 (UTC)
honestly, I don't see how ars is not a blog. simply aggregating news would not be a blog, you are right, but but ars isn't just an rss feed. they post blog-style news posts, and write comments on them. just like slashdot, just like a million other blogs on the internet. slashdot does the same thing ars does, and slashdot proudly states is is a blog. El jefe04 21:48, 9 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Recent edits

Making continual extlinks to the same domain in one article in the body of the text looks like advertising. I don't see why every section needs to be directly linked from the article body. We're talking about over ten links here.

The article isn't currently very good as regards sourcing. Adding a real references section encourages people to add real references. Chris Cunningham 00:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

The alternative is to have them clogging up the External links section. That's where they were originally moved from.
The better alternative is to not link them in the first place. Reference links should be for actual references; the old layout looked like a site map more than an encyclopedia article. Had I assumed this was in any way controversail I'd have gone that route. Chris Cunningham 19:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Linking to something being discussed isn't in itself advertising. The solution to sourcing issues would be to add uncites, I'd think, so that areas you feel are problematic can be identified and discussed.A "real" references section is no better than in-text references, and it shouldn't be classified as "wiking." That's preposterous. See WP:CITE#Citation styles. The first line in the list for acceptable citation styles is "embedded HTML links." If you're not going to make an effort to provide FULL citations (author, publication date, etc.), there's no point in having a references section. - Debuskjt 15:01, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Full citations can be added later. It seems like a bit of a waste of electrons to convert a bunch of links which probably aren't of any real value to the article into proper cites. The next time I pass through I'll have a look at expanding the most useful refs into full cites. Chris Cunningham 19:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
Is this going to be done? If not, it was a waste of electrons to remove in-line citations for footnotes. - Debuskjt 15:10, 27 September 2006 (UTC)
And your italics are inconsistent. That is distracting and detracts from the article. It should be either made consistent or reverted. - Debuskjt 15:06, 22 September 2006 (UTC)
I'll tidy them just now then, thanks. Chris Cunningham 19:14, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Chronological order for talk

This talk page is far too long. I'm planning on reorganising it in order to archive another two or three chunks. Anyone is free to help of course. Chris Cunningham 00:10, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

I've shuffled the old talk into archive pages. A better way of presenting these would be nice. Chris Cunningham 19:44, 22 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Removal of ownership information and other site information

I would appreciate a valid reason for the persistent removal of this information, other than the ambiguous "it's not notable". This sort of information is clearly notable enough to be included in a range of other website articles. In addition, the terms of service is referenced in a number of places in the article already, other than the portions I added. Please provide a valid reason for your actions before removing this information. Seragenn 00:05, 15 December 2006 (UTC)

The terms of use of a web site is not worthy of inclusion in an encyclopedia. How Ars Technica makes money is not that interesting. The fact that Ars Technica outsources their subscriber billing is also not that interesting. Wikipedia doesn't exist to replicate all the information on the Internet. If someone wants to see what the terms of use or how subscriptions work on Ars Technica, they can read it on the web site. A single external link will suffice for explaining that level of detail. A good example of what en encyclopedic article about a web site should look like is LiveJournal; notice the lack of emphasis given to minute details about billing systems.
Look, it's clear that your purpose here on Wikipedia is singular -- to repeatedly push asinine and irrelevant information into this article. It's not the first time we've had someone attempt this, and I assure you that you're wasting your time. -/- Warren 23:10, 16 December 2006 (UTC)
What's your damage, private? If you could explain what is asinine and irrelvant about the information that would be terrific. The information is useful enough to be referenced in other parts of the article, and this type of information is useful enough to be included in other articles. The CNET page has company ownership information. I see no reason why this article should not either. Give me a reason why neither article should have it, and I'll go with your version. Seragenn 09:54, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
First of all, we don't need to say that "LLC" means "Limited Liability Company" in the lead sentence of the article. Come on, man we're an encyclopedia -- our goal is to define what "Ars Technica" IS, not who owns it.
So Again, I ask: WHY IS THAT INFORMATION ON THE CNET ARTICLE PAGE IF IT IS NOT RELEVANT? Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
People reading the article really, honestly don't care that the web site is owned by a company with the same name as the web site. We also don't need to describe minute details of subscriptions or renewals; again, terms of use do not hold much in the way of encyclopedic value. Always bear this in mind: WIKIPEDIA IS NOT THE INTERNET -- we don't need to collate every possible little piece of information, if it's readily available on the public web site the article talks about. This saves us the rather onerous responsibility of updating the article when some of these minute details change.
People do care about the information. That exact information is included on plenty of other articles. You have not addressed this point, except to say that you don't LIKE the information I'm including. Which is a personal preference.

Your argument as to why this information should not be included is nonsensical, as you're basically saying "Don't include verifiable, referenced information." That is ridiculous. Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


When something is interesting, and has high informative value, it belongs in Wikipedia. For example, the article on Starbucks devotes some space to their non-smoking policy because it has been controversial in some countries with a strong smoking culture... however, we don't report on what kind of cash registers Starbucks uses in their stores, because it is of low informative value.
And the other references to the TOS are included why? Again, your logic is flawed. Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


Anyways, if you need more examples of how Wikipedia deals with tech sites, Have a look at AnandTech, Tom's Hardware Guide, HardOCP, Blue's News, Penny Arcade (webcomic), Experts-Exchange, or any number of Ars Technica's peers.
Ok, I looked. The Slashdot article includes the following:

"Created in September 1997 by Rob "CmdrTaco" Malda, Slashdot is now owned by the Open Source Technology Group, part of VA Software."

The CNET article includes the following: "CNET Networks, Inc. (NASDAQ: CNET) is an Internet-based American media company based in San Francisco, California co-founded in 1993 by Halsey Minor and Shelby Bonnie. A publicly held company, its stock trades on the Nasdaq Stock Market under the ticker symbol CNET."

I REPEAT MYSELF: IF THIS SORT OF INFORMATION IS NOT RELEVANT, WHY IS IT INCLUDED IN OTHER ARTICLES FOR THE SAME TYPE OF WEBSITE? Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)


There's a further problem in that you are adding factually incorrect information, which Clintology noted below and removed. If you expect your contributions to be taken seriously, you'll have to do better than this. -/- Warren 23:17, 19 December 2006 (UTC)
This is false. Consider the reference added. Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Also, new conversion topics go at the bottom of the talk page. Don't move your pet subject to the top. -/- Warren 23:19, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I've removed the information about "* Affiliate sales commissions." I could not find any reference to this on the site. Could someone back it up with some proof? --clintology 22:20, 19 December 2006 (UTC)

I figured you guys were in cahoots. I smell a case of someone editing the article about their own website. I would have thought higher of Ars than stooping to vandalize wikipedia. Seragenn 05:47, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Huh? I'm not sure what you're implying here. You didn't add any sort of reference to the claim about "Affiliate Sales", so I'm going to re-remove it until you can provide some sort of proof. (See below) Please provide a link to the page where something is mentioned about affiliate sales. --24.12.64.121 14:00, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
I just saw the link you provided. It doesn't say anything about Affiliate sales. Nor are there any "Sale" notices posted under the news section. The post you reference seems to just be a post about some deals someone found at Dell.com. This doesn't add up to "Affiliate sales" and I'm not sure how you got to that conclusion. I'm leaving it as removed. --24.12.64.121 14:05, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Oops didn't notice I wasn't logged in on this computer. The above two comments and the edit are mine. --clintology 14:06, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
Actually, now that I sit here and think about it, I realize you're right, you just don't provide the correct reference and don't explain what you're meaning very well. Assuming that this content belongs on this page, Ars does make some money from Dealpost affiliate sales. Check out http://shop.arstechnica.com for a proper reference. I'm still not sure what you mean by "Sale" links under the news section though. --clintology 14:08, 20 December 2006 (UTC)
It does discuss affiliate sales, that entire "news" post is an advertisement for Dell computer equipment, linked to Dell product pages, and those links include what is commonly referred to on the INTERNET as an AFFILIATE ID. When someone clicks on that LINK with the AFFILIATE ID and BUYS SOMETHING, Ars Technica makes money. Is that clear? It's pretty crystal to me. I would hope your difficulty with this is not an intentional misunderstanding. Seragenn 02:02, 21 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Reversions

As I've stated in my edit summaries, this Seragenn user continues to have a fascination with degrading the quality of the article by adding information that doesn't belong here. My reasons for continuing to remove this material are as follows:

One: Usually when I see someone come to Wikipedia and jump right into arguments over what should be included in an article, and get extremely insistent that their specific details are important -- especially if those details don't cast the subject in a good light -- they're usually doing so to promote an agenda or to vent frustration. This isn't a useful or productive way to improve an encyclopedia, and almost never results in things going the way the new user wants. Wikipedia's policy on Neutral point of view is required reading here. More specifically, the section on "undue weight", which states: "An article should not give undue weight to any aspects of the subject, but should strive to treat each aspect with a weight appropriate to its significance to the subject. Note that undue weight can be given in several ways, including, but not limited to, depth of detail, quantity of text, prominence of placement, and juxtaposition of statements." In our particular case here, all of Seragenn's edits revolve around very specific monetary aspects of Ars Technica's subscriber model; subscriptions are otherwise completely unmentioned in the article, so if any coverage of this subject is going to be added, it must be done in a neutral and even fashion -- and that means, at minimum, saying that they... you know... exist?

Two: We are not the Internet. This is part of the "Wiki is not paper" guidelines we're expected to follow in the process of creating better encyclopedia articles. Minor implementation details about Ars Technica's subscription model is not encyclopedia-worthy material, unless it's somehow especially notable or has generated controversy. I mean, come on, "Ars Technica reserves the right to restrict subscriber access from the site for any reason, without notice"? So? Why does Seragenn feel this is vitally important information to repeatedly ram into the article, when the article doesn't even mention that Ars Technica offers subscriptions? I've written a lot of Wikipedia articles in my time here, and I've seen text I've written appear on Wikipedia's front page as the blurb for an article of the day, so I'm pretty sure I'm a reasonably good judge of what's encyclopedia-worthy, and what's not. Again, if we're going to include information about Ars Technica offering subscriptions, then let's at least start by saying that they offer them?

Three: Regarding the lead sentence. We are -not- going to beat our readers into a bloody pulp with "LLC" and its expansion a total of three times in the space of one sentence. That's horrible English. Stating the words "Ars Technica" more than once in any short sentence should also be avoided for the same reason. We can formulate sentences better than this. A simple rule of thumb: Read a sentence aloud, with full expansions -- if it sounds bad, it's bad. -/- Warren 12:29, 25 December 2006 (UTC)

So how is removing those facts (and they are facts) a neutral edit to the article? I don't understand why you seem to think that is negative information. They are verifiable facts, and documented. What's your damage, private? Seragenn 08:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
If that's your reasoning, that's fine with me. We should just be sure the rest of the article holds up to it. Seragenn 08:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Again, fine with me, even though that goes against the example set in other articles. Seragenn 08:28, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Your behaviour is becoming disruptive -- don't remove large swaths of an article to make a point. See WP:POINT. Also, for the sake of readability, don't intersperse your comments in the middle of others'. -/- Warren 08:45, 28 December 2006 (UTC)
Warrens said: "I mean, come on, "Ars Technica reserves the right to restrict subscriber access from the site for any reason, without notice"? So? Why does Seragenn feel this is vitally important information to repeatedly ram into the article". The point is a sound one. An encyclopedia does not need information like this. Check out the AllOfMP3.com entry for a great example of an article that is constantly being updated with information that doesn't belong there. Encyclopedia readers do not need to know the day-to-day status of how to refill a balance on AllOfMP3.com just as they don't need to know the minutiae of Ars Technica's subscription terms. -- Hux 13:30, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wikipedia:Notability (web)

People interested in thie article might want to check out the guidelines on Notability (web). This article currently doesn't appear to establish that Ars Technica meets the guidelines for notability. To avoid potential future deletion this should be rectified Nil Einne 06:57, 16 March 2007 (UTC)

I recommend following the format used by Slashdot, Engadget, and other large tech sites. Seansquared 17:57, 16 March 2007

I've taken a look at slashdot and it appears to me to be a good example of what NOT to follow. While there are some good things and it's probably in a better state then this article, it seems to be especially bad at establishing it's noteability. For example, there are very few inline citations or citations of any sort to sources outside of slashdot. While sections like the 'slashdot effect' does establish it's noteability, as does the notable contributors and the number of comments etc to some extent it really needs to go further then that. A fair amount of stuff which helps estabish it's noteability is not in the article. For example it's won multiple? webby awards but the only way you will know is from the external links. Similarly slashdot has obviously been referred to a lot by external reliable sources. There doesn't appear to be any real mention of this, apart from a link to a paper which mentions slashdot in the citations (but there is no use or mention of this reference in the article from what I can tell) and several external links with external sources which mention slashdot, like CNN. Nil Einne 14:49, 18 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] tech report

should a note on the tech report be added? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by Flyingember (talk • contribs) 01:54, 17 March 2007 (UTC).

Retrieved from "http://en.wikipedia.org../../../a/r/s/Talk%7EArs_Technica_e62f.html"