Wikipedia talk:Quebec Wikipedians' notice board

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Contents

[edit] Followup on the March Wikipedia Meetup in La Casa del Popolo

Pour faire suite à la rencontre du 14 mars, voici une copie wikifiée du brouillon des Montreal Propositions :

[edit] Propositions to help in solving Wikipedia's most frequently reported weaknesses

First, we want to stress the importance for the Wikipedian community of finding permanent solutions to the problems that are most often brought up by observers. You may or may not be already aware of some critical opinions that were recently published about Wikipedia. Here are the two that we are aware of:

If you know of other articles, you are invited to add them to this short list.

A few weeks after the publishing of the two articles, Wikipedia co-founder Larry Sanger submitted a personal "response" to these two articles in Kuro5hin. It can be read online at this address:

In his opinion text, he suggests that two of the problems people have with Wikipedia, in fact, have a single problem at their root.

  • First problem: lack of public perception of credibility.
  • Second problem: the dominance of difficult people, trolls, and their enablers.
  • The root problem: anti-elitism, or lack of respect for expertise.

We will leave it up to people to form their opinion of Larry Sanger's conclusion. His comment is most certainly of interest; however, we cannot wholly agree with his conclusion because our observations and subsequent analysis lead us to a different conclusion. Therefore, we will move on to point out what we believe the root of the problem is, and we will also propose a solution of our own.

[edit] On the accuracy of information

In our opinion, the biggest problem we must recognize is this one:

People wanting to simply use Wikipedia as an information source currently have no obvious way to be certain that the articles they find can safely be used as a reference. This means that, at present, Wikipedia is often simply discounted as a reliable source of information, which obviously it should not be (in our opinion as devoted Wikipedians). Why is this?

A great many articles in Wikipedia are unfinished and in perpetual evolution. Can we say that for the majority of the articles? We do not know for sure. Some statistics on this would be useful. Please contribute statistics if you have any. Quantifying this would help us understand the phenomenon.

What is for sure, however, is that when a visitor searches for and finds an article in Wikipedia, we know that it may

  1. contain factual errors,
  2. be poorly written (and thereby misleading),
  3. be biased to some degree, and/or
  4. even be vandalized.

In other words, nothing truly prevents a simple user from landing on an article that simply doesn't live up to Wikipedia's own guidelines. This is the normal result of Wikipedia's functionning and must not come as a surprise. Why is it so?

Although it would be better for the whole community if people first took the time to prepare their contribution outside Wikipedia and then, after some basic verifications (sources, grammar, spelling etc.), added it inside our beloved online encyclopedia, this is not what really happens. Nothing inside Wikipedia enforces this good practice; everyone can easily create/edit an article at any time using Wikipedia's own wiki editor, and there is in fact nothing to stop or even discourage people from drafting their text directly into the wiki editor we provide. (Admit it, you did it yourself at least once... ;-)

Ideally, we all wish people would first read Wikipedia's documentation before they start modifying existing articles or creating new ones. In reality, new contributors may input quite a lot of content before they take the time to catch up on all this reading. The talk page is, as most of you would agree, not used enough by people. What really belongs in the talk page often ends up directly in the article and this produces what came to be known as "edit wars", a phenomenon which is downright immature and silly. (Yes, I include myself in the list of the immature ones. :-)

[edit] The Montreal Propositions

What do formal printed encyclopedias have that Wikipedia doesn't?

We think the answer to this question is simple: they have a review process which every article has to undergo before it gets printed. The review process exists to ensure that every article meets the quality standards set by the encyclopedia editor.

What is the best solution we can devise to give visitors the assurance that the average quality of Wikipedia's articles is at least as good as that of formal encyclopedias?

Our answer to this questions can be summed up in the two proposals below:

  1. Automatically mark articles as "reviewed" or "not yet reviewed"
  2. Set up a review process leading to the removal of the "not yet reviewed" mark

[edit] "Not yet reviewed" tag

We already have a tag mechanism as part of Wikipedia. Let us better use what is already there by automatically tagging every new article as Not yet reviewed.

Example: "This article has not yet been reviewed. It may contain factual errors or spelling mistakes, and has not yet been through Wikipedia's article review process. If you have knowledge on the subject being treated by in article, you are invited to contribute."

Sub-proposal: Add an option to Wikipedia's search engine to filter out these articles. This new option should be set to "on" by default in the internal search engine, but not at first, as this would mean people would find no article at all. A simple checkbox labeled include articles that have not yet been reviewed by Wikipedia could allow users to include everything back in the search. Obviously, we want all articles to appear in the watchlists, the community portal etc.

What of the fact that Google will find and index these articles? Well, as User:EvanProdromou suggested it is possible to prevent Google from indexing certain pages in Wikipedia. (How do we do this?)

[edit] Create a review process

By a review process, we mean a series of verifications made to an article which, assuming a successful review, will lead to the removal of the Not yet reviewed tag on this article. The reviewed articles would have a quality assurance tag. It could say something like: "This article has been reviewed by Wikipedia. It was found to be compliant with Wikipedia's 7 quality assurance criteria." The latest reviewed article could be made available by clicking on an additional tab (maybe named Reviewed Article?) right where we presently have the Article, Discussion, Edit this page, History, and Watch tabs. The Article tab would of course continue to contain the latest freely editable version of the article, but we would also have an "official" version 1.0 of the article. This is similar to the concept of having a development branch and a stable branch of a program's source code.

The most important issue to solve if we go forward with a formal review process is "How do we create a review process that is 1) consensual, 2) effective, and 3) trusted by everyone?"

[edit] Selection

Here is what we have in mind:

Much like the "featured articles" process we currently have, we would first have a stage where people submit articles to the review process. We need to draft guidelines to help people bring up article from a simple draft to one that is worthy of being submitted to the review process. Maybe a qualified majority vote in the talk page?

The second step after the initial submission would be to select an article for review. The method used by "featured articles" is not quite appropriate in this case. We would have to come up with something else this time. Essentially, all articles submitted to the review process should, in the end, all get reviewed, but passing them in order of submission might slow things down. We need to allow for multiple reviews at the same time.

Update: User:EvanProdromou suggested that the articles needing review could simply be listed in a section of the Wikipedia:Community_Portal.

[edit] The process

The actual review process could consist of 7 jobs (which can be done in parallel):

  • Content review (Is the information accurate? Is there any information that can be proven to be in contradiction with verifiable evidence?)
  • Neutrality review (Is there a visible point of view?)
  • Sources review (Do the sources exist? Are the sources in accord with the article's content?)
  • Copyright review (Are we in violation of someone's copyright?)
  • Spelling & grammar review (Are there any orthographic or grammatical errors?)
  • Language quality review (Is the language appropriate for an encyclopedia article? Can some sentences be rephrased to bring more clarity?)
  • Wiki syntax & style review (Does the article style comply with Wikipedia's recommendations? Is the proper wiki syntax being used? Can we wikify/unwikify some keywords?)

The time that will be required to do a full review will vary greatly from one article to the other. To take on the 7 jobs of the review process, we need 1) qualified volunteers 2) a set of criteria everyone agrees with.

[edit] The reviewers

A central question: How do we choose the reviewers?

Obviously, we need to establish a few rules to avoid potential conflicts of interest. We think that we should, minimally, exclude the initial contributors to the article from the review process. That is, all users (and IP addresses) who edited an article being submitted for review cannot be accepted as content, neutrality, sources, or copyright reviewers of the said article.

Sub-proposal: Create an evaluation program to produce "encyclopedist apprentices" out of Wikipedians.

The community around the Wikiversity project might be interest in this. Here we are thinking of reusing and expanding the series of tutorials that we have (grammar, neutrality, copyright) to allow Wikipedians to educate themselves, and also of creating a set of complementary self-evaluations.

A Wikipedia user successfully passing the Wikipedia grammar exam could receive some sort of "electronic diploma" allowing participation to the review process. This would work very well to turn normal wikipedians into neutrality, sources, copyright, spelling, language quality, and wikisyntax reviewers.

[edit] Openened Questions

[edit] Evaluations
  • How do we go about writing the tutorials/evaluations?
  • How do we set up the process whereby the tutorials/evaluations get their own reviews?
  • Should we limit the number of times a person can take a test?

[edit] Technicalities
  • How do we go about adding online tutorials/self-evaluations to Wikipedia?
  • How do we go about issuing electronic diplomas in a secure way?

[edit] Title of the notice board

This page has been moved from "Wikipedia:Quebec wikipedians' notice board" to "Wikipedia:Quebec Wikipedians' notice board" on Apr 12, 2005 by User:Timwi (See edit history).

[edit] What do they have, that you don't have?

The Wizard of Oz asked this question to the scarecrow, tin man and lion. Here are his answers (in a handy table):

Scarecrow a diploma
Tin man a testimonial
Cowardly Lion a medal

To what extent do Wikipedia contributors require diplomas, testimonials, or medals to be credible? Is this question itself elitist, and therefore to be discounted and ignored while we "move on" to better approaches?

We want people to trust our work, and yet we know why they don't: factual errors, sloppy writng, bias (as listed way above). Some contributors don't even bother to correct their own typos! (writng should be writing, but who cares? Someone else will fix it.) Uncle Ed 13:30, 27 October 2005 (UTC)

[edit] November Wikimeet?

So, is it for tonight, or...? And where? DS 19:20, 7 November 2005 (UTC)

[edit] Canadian city naming convention

To try to get a good consensus, I am posting at all Canadian regional wikiprojects: Wikipedia talk:Canadian wikipedians' notice board#Canadian city naming convention. I just realized that Quebec might need its own naming convention. Thanks! -- Usgnus 21:50, 16 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Provincial stubs and categories

Provincial Stub Proposals - Should templates and stub categories be created for Alberta, Saskatchewan and Newfoundland & Labrador? (See related SFD discussion regarding N.B., PEI, and Manitoba (plus the territories)). Agent 86 02:40, 6 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Standard naming scheme

Please see the discussion at Wikipedia talk:Regional notice boards#A uniform naming scheme. Zocky | picture popups 00:52, 14 July 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Request

Hi ! Sorry to interfer. I'm a journalist for the daily La Presse, and I'm doing a paper about Wikipedians, especially wikipedians who are very active in the encyclopedia. I'm looking for people from Montreal, Francos or Anglos. Anybody interested in dropping me a mail ? You can write to me at niko@hysterie.qc.ca or User:Nikolai35

[edit] Proposed Move of Gatineau, Quebec

[edit] Proposed deletion of Action civique de Québec

The discussion is at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Action civique de Québec. Skeezix1000 12:47, 6 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] DYK

The DYK section featured on the main page is always looking for interesting new and recently expanded stubs from different parts of the world. Please make a suggestion.--Peta 02:09, 10 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Bécancour

"Sectors" isn't really the best word to use in English for what it's being used to mean on the Bécancour article — in English it actually has a military connotation, more like a post-war occupation zone (e.g. Allied Occupation Zones in Germany) than part of a town or city. It's been suggested that the word be changed to something more appropriate — but would they be better characterized as boroughs (arrondissements) or just plain old neighbourhoods with no particular political status of their own? Bearcat 03:03, 24 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Notice Board updates

Hi, I've been bold and done some fairly major updates to the QWNB. Please let me know what you think, and feel free to discuss here any issues that may arise from the changes I've made. --dragfyre 03:27, 8 December 2006 (UTC)


[edit] Merge Request

Current this namespace is operating under pretenses of a notice board when in reality its more like a WikiProject. Many other provinces and cities have started WikiProjects and Quebec should do the same. The organization of this Notice Board is incredible, but WikiProjects have a fairly comprehensive standard and template set out specifically to organize group collaboration over a single or many subjects. The WikiProject Council is attempting to phase out the use of Notice Boards in a substancial way in place of the newer methods of using WikiProjects. I have laid out the template structure for your WikiProject and all that would be needed is moving content over in an organized fashion. Good luck. Mkdwtalk 05:09, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

Oh cool. I am all for this—hopefully this will generate more enthusiasm in improving Quebec-related article on the English-language Wikipedia. As noted above, I made some changes recently to the notice board template and would love to help further develop such a project. Is there a formal request to be made, or was this basically it? —dragfyre 05:15, 24 December 2006 (UTC)
I personally strongly support the concept that Wikipedia is a group collaboration. As such this was my formal request to you, the participants of the Quebec notice board. If the general consensus is 'yes' then the two pages will be merged and redundant information will be divided accordingly. The notice board will continue to work as a part of the WikiProject. In hopes you all agree, I will continue to work on the WikiProject in the mean time. Mkdwtalk 05:44, 24 December 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Census divisions

I'd like to ask if someone more knowledgeable about Quebec demographics can clarify a question for me. What type of geographic divisions in Quebec are used for Statistics Canada purposes as the actual legal census divisions? Is it the administrative regions (Nord-du-Québec, Abitibi-Témiscamingue, etc.) or is it the Regional County Municipalities? As things currently stand, Wikipedia is a bit ambiguous about this: in some places we say it's one, and in other places we say it's the other. Bearcat 23:33, 12 January 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Propsed new Nav Box

The main problem with WP's coverage of New France is that there is little continuity between the different locales. Americans editors have made the Louisiana page very good, but much of it duplicates the main page. Meanwhile the main page concentrates way too much on Canada, and neglects Acadia, Louisiana, etc. There is a separate page for the colony of Canada but it is mostly unused. To help readers, and editors get a better understanding of how New France was organized. I am proposing creating this new Navbox template. The first section I am committed to and eventually I want to see it put on pages regardless. The rest is open to debate and change.

PROTOTYPE NAVBOX DELETED

What do you think? Is it too broad, too narrow? Would a list of topics be better? Thanks for the imput. Kevlar67 21:37, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

While I'm at it: is there any desire to have a general {{Topics on Quebec}} template in the mold of {{Topics on Alberta}}? If anything I think Quebec needs it more than Alberta since there are much more history and and politics related topics on Quebec on WP. OTOH, Quebec is such a big topic that it would be hard knowing exactly want to include. But, if there is a desire to have one, I would be happy to help. Kevlar67 22:16, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
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