Wikipedia talk:The Core Contest

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[edit] Bias?

Doesn't this list involve bias? However it was drawn up? Even random! Things like competitions, charities and chapters are more than a slippery slope if you ask me. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:47, 25 November 2007 (UTC) (forgot to sign)

In which case probably most others will disagree with you. Ask Danny as to his selection criteria. Moreschi If you've written a quality article... 16:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
How do you know how happily Wikipedia actually sits with its contributors? Many, like me, are here because we can't accept the bias we've seen it the Wikipedia page that inevitably hits the top of our ‘web search’ - not necessarily because we are in love with the place! And how many people in the world ignore Wikipedia and pretend it isn't there? They wouldn't like it either. --Matt Lewis (talk) 16:50, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
It's a huge list of articles which Danny thinks are important topics. I don't see why it would be biased. Anyway, Danny (and most others) knows to have WP:NPOV. <fontstyle="background:#7FFF00">Reywas92Talk 22:49, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Suppose for sake of discussion that the list included only articles with titles beginning with "B". Very highly biased. How would that make the contest unfair as long as editors can choose which articles they wish to edit within the contest period? Wanderer57 (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC) (I suppose it would disadvantage those editors who have vowed to never edit "B" articles.)

Ununquadium and other synthetic elements?!? How is that core? MilesAgain (talk) 17:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Positioning

Should this really be in the watchlist? It's pretty crowded as it is... Ral315 » 19:28, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

No, it shouldn't. Use the village pump or other centralized discussion pages to promote this contest, which will interest a tiny fraction of Wikipedians -- those who treat Wikipedia as a competitive sport. Eric Sandholm 21:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Since wikipedia is offering to pay people for fixing articles, why don't they pay all the contributors for their hours of research. Wikipedia seems bent on spending money on a few editors that have no life whatsoever that have the time to kiss up to the Wikimedia big wigs. I think Wikipedia editors should boycott this contest or the Wikimedia foundation if it is so intent on creating authoratative articles should just become another Citizendium. 68.206.76.161 (talk) 23:05, 24 November 2007 (UTC)
Based on some talk pages, Wikipedia editing closely resembles tag team wrestling. Wanderer57 (talk) 01:27, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It should also be placed on the Wikipedia:Reward board. You're more likely to find people who care about editing for money there. GreenReaper (talk) 08:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
You may want to take part in the the village pump|village pump discussion on this issue. Some of it duplicates what is being said here, but I think a separate, centralised, discussion on what is or is not acceptable in the watchlist is necessary in order to prevent things like this from happening again. Lurker (said · done) 14:36, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It should be placed in Template:Wikipedia ads and ONLY there. Kingturtle (talk) 14:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Start and end dates

That's great, but when is the two-week period? There is no start date or end date given for the contest. --EncycloPetey (talk) 19:38, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Dates added. Danny (talk) 20:34, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Good concept. A suggestion to improve on future such contests: make it way longer than two weeks, and give much more advance warning. Those of us with actual lives can't do anything in such a short timespan with such short notice, which means you're likely left with people in the range of teens and early 20s who may not be as knowledgeable as older people with advanced degrees and more life experiences. Just a thought. For comparison, the last thorough article I created from scratch took me two months to do properly before I felt it ready to put in public view. I'd be much more able to help if it was, say, a 6-week timespan. Remember that the severe downside of quality is time. Nerwen (talk) 21:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Are recently improved pages accepted?

I recently improved a few pages in Wikipedia such as Earth science. Would I be able to enter them?--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 21:23, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

We would like pages improved from today, November 24. Danny (talk) 23:39, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thank you.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 02:18, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can I enter more than once?

I intend to improve a few more articles. Can I enter more than once?--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 21:25, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm not judging, but I don't see why not. Reywas92Talk 22:46, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes. As many times as you want. Danny (talk) 23:40, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 02:20, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Recusal

As a major contributor and developer of Veropedia (in addition to being a close friend of Danny and Alison), I will not be participating in the contest to remove any perceived conflicts of interest with the judging. ^demon[omg plz] 22:26, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Authors?

How will the particular authors of the candidate be chosen? Is it just the person who made the entry? The last n people to contribute? Please clarify. VanTucky talk 23:45, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

It will be based on who made the most significant contributions to improve the article, as it will appear in teh history, from today until it is submitted. Danny (talk) 23:59, 24 November 2007 (UTC)

Thanks! VanTucky talk 00:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know... I'm anticipating WP:OWN problems in a bunch of core articles over the next few weeks. Dekimasuよ! 04:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
You might be right, but there are two important points to consider. One: sadly, many of the vital articles named are almost completely neglected other than vandalism reverts (if that). If no one else is editing them but a person interested because of the contest, then WP:OWN doesn't enter into it. Two: the good done by improving vital subjects will most certainly counteract any ownership problems. WP:OWN has never been one of the central problems here, and that's because the weight of the thousands of other editors generally quaffs such notions very easily (when compared to some other basic issues). In other words, I wouldn't worry about it. VanTucky talk 04:49, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Scope?

Is this limited to the articles here or does it apply to all of WP:VITAL? --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 00:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Here. Danny (talk) 01:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I think, Hemlock Martinis pointed to the wrong link. This contest covers all the articles listed here as described by Danny in the main project page. Correct me, if I am wrong. DSachan (talk) 03:35, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Drafts

I and another user have been working on a draft of one of these core articles. This contest has spurred me to polish up the draft and finish writing it faster than I would have otherwise (we still have to add about half of the article), however I did not know if such an article would count for the contest. Please let me know. Thanks. Awadewit | talk 02:22, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't understand the question. If it is on the list of articles, it will count. Danny (talk) 03:03, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

  • It is just that half of the draft is already written - it is here. We would only be writing half of the article after the contest had started (and polishing the other half). I just wanted to be totally above-board here. If it can be considered for the contest, we will start writing the second half and polishing the first half. Thanks! Awadewit | talk 03:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
How would the prize be distributed if two people contributed equally to the same article?--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 03:10, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
  • I assume we would split it 50/50? Awadewit | talk 03:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Basis for article inclusion in the core topics list

I was just wondering what is the basis of including topics in the core topics list prepared for the contest. Because I could find even the ununseptium (and this element has not even been discoeved yet!) and Wednesday on the list, but not the more important articles like brain and cell. The first two articles are important, I am not denying, but having said that, I must say that the other two are certainly more important than the former ones and I can't find them anywhere on the list. DSachan (talk) 04:12, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The list is based on the core list, as you mention, but there are also many missing. Those are articles that have already been imported into Veropedia. That said, if you feel that any core article can be improved significantly, then I invite you to do so and submit it. I can assure you, it will be considered. Danny (talk) 04:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Why is Personal life in the top 8? Wrad (talk) 05:01, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh, never noticed it sitting right at the top. I guess, this article should aptly be replaced by the article on life, which seems to be a more important article to me and would be better suited in that high profile list. DSachan (talk) 05:11, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
All the other top articles seem to be based on broad fields of study, though. Life isn't a field of study. I don't see the connection. Wrad (talk) 05:13, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Ah, Never noticed that too. I was just trying to suggest a good replacement by an important article. I didn't notice the classification which you did. Perhaps, Danny could comment on this issue now. DSachan (talk) 05:23, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The list is culturally biased in much the same way the English Wikipedia already is. It includes relatively large but historically unimportant American cities such as San Antonio, Texas, San Jose, California, or Phoenix, Arizona, while European cities like Florence or Milan are excluded. Seriously? Olaus (talk) 09:47, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Selection of winner

From the given list, does a improving a stub to featured article stand a better chance winning, or will a B-class article have an equal chance? =Nichalp «Talk»= 06:09, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Equal chances. Danny (talk) 07:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Does the article actually have to go through FAC? FAC will be overwhelmed - as if it isn't already. Awadewit | talk 10:14, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] List

That is a pretty shoddily-constructed list. For example, titles with diacritics lost whole letters, turning Lech Wałęsa into Lech Wasa, which was a red link although I've now redirected it – Gurch 07:40, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

That was my fault, but I've corrected it. It was a bug related to copy/paste buffer restrictions.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 08:02, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Companies offering money for article improvement acceptable?

I'm wondering if this is a conflict of interest considering it's ran by people who seem to have a prominent stake in the private company Veropedia Inc, who (presumably) plan to use the contributions downstream to move forward their own interests - in particular, I'm concerned with the way it's been included into MediaWiki:watchlist-details, which is only editable by administrators.

I can't help but feel if a "normal" company with commercial interests wanted to do a similar contest it would be treated with derision and wouldn't be given equal prominence, but this seems to be deemed to be acceptable. I guess the key question is this: is it now deemed generally acceptable for people working on behalf of companies to offer money for Wikipedia article improvement? -Halo (talk) 11:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I've just found a similar discussion going on at the village pump about the acceptability of this contest which should probably be linked here if it hasn't been already -Halo (talk) 11:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Please note the village pump discussion is not about the acceptability of the contest (I don't see how you could ban people from giving other editors money) but about the acceptabilty of the notice in the watchlist. Lurker (said · done) 14:33, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
It's out of order in my opinion - I've been looking into it. Someone has even had a critical post removed from here - I don't like it at all. It's not what I thought Wikipedia was about at all. --Matt Lewis (talk) 11:43, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
All veropedia users also edit wikipedia, even Danny. This competition encourages the improvement of wikipedia, and anything that benifits the site is welcome--Phoenix-wiki (talk · contribs) 13:46, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't have a problem with the contest. Anyone can use whatever method they choose (within reason) to encourage people to contribute to articles they wish to see improved. I don't see this contest as being different from the Reward Board. It's not a COI, as the contest administrators are not trying to dictate the content of the improvements they are soliciting.
However, I do have a problem with the way it is promoted. All members of Wikipedia:WikiProject Scotland edit Wikipedia. All members of Wikipedia:WikiProject U.S. Roads edit Wikipedia. But their projects are not advertised in MediaWiki:watchlist-details. Advertising the contest there creates the impression that this is an official Wikipedia move, as the space is generally only used for official announcements. In fact, it could be a good idea to userfy the whole contest, in order to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest. Lurker (said · done) 14:25, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
I concur. When I saw the ad on my watchlist I totally thought it was WMF offering the prize money. It's only when I was directed here after expressing my resentment on the village pump that I came to know how things really were.Amit@Talk 14:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
As I'm always forced to state at times like this, I don't like the idea of contributors making contributions in exchange for financial compensation, whether it's done on-Wiki or off-Wiki (particularly since we've blocked/banned users like Kohs for doing so in the past). -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 22:27, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Why the core anyway? And surely it's biased.

When enquiring over bias, a poster informed me that this entire list is what ‘Danny thinks’, and that Danny ‘knows not to use POV’. That is simply contradictory to me, and it made me look into who Danny is. This hand-picked ‘core list’ (however long it is and wherever it was taken from) is surely a product of Danny’s thoughts – and must therefore constitute POV and original research! People can vouch for Danny’s good character, but unfortunately it proves nothing. To me, if this kind of rationality prevails, WP will become weaker and weaker. The lowest common denominator can too easily win battles on WP – and thus can eventually win the war. Neutrality must be regulated in my opinion – games like this must be controlled.

Look at life - competitions are usually a form of advertising. Quasi-autonomous organisations like ‘chapters’ are very often unregulated, and charities are all too often loopholes of some kind, and have an inbuilt bias too. Corruption when it exists is rarely in the open for all to see!

Wikipedia too often lacks ethical and intellectual depth in these matters for me.

Danny’s personal understanding of ‘importance’, and that he cannot include an article he doesn’t know of - are two valid forms of bias for me. POV exists in us all – I believe it drives us on, but in WP there are rules to help and make us write objectively (if never quite entirely neutrally in my opinion). The inherent POV in Danny’s’ list cannot be removed using citations etc. To remove the POV you would have to remove the list.

I would guess that Danny probably means well – but I’ve just noticed that on his user pages he has put Jesus at no.1 in his ‘50 most important core biographies’, with Mohammed at no.2! There’s nothing quite as partial as ranking religions is there? It looks like an outstanding example of ‘damning with faint praise’- though I expect it’s just an insensitive act by something of a ‘statistic’ and ‘list freak’! I know that there is said to be 2.1 billion Christians, compared to a lesser 1 to 1.8 billion Muslims, and that Jesus actually is an important prophet in Islam – but it surely makes no difference to me – this is Danny showing a penchant for some form of subtle/unsubtle bias in a core list!

Or else it is simply alphabetical or chronological. What the hell do I care? I'm Jewish. Danny (talk) 03:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

(Just a note on how often WP is ‘uncertain’ in sociological matters - Those WP-locked statistics on religion aren’t particularly great anyway - the UK, for example, is considered by many to be largely atheist - but atheists often give their christened denomination in a census, especially if it’s Catholic (which is a social identity as well as a religion). ‘Christians’ were at 71% in the last UK census, yet general opinion polls consistently say that over 50% of British are atheists! Unsurprisingly, only 7% of the census’ 71% said they attended a church! Is the (reportedly) declining Christianity still bigger than a steadily growing Islam? It may in reality not be the case! But would Jesus be ‘no2’ if Islam had more followers? And why order such a list?)

I’ve also noticed that Danny runs an independent ‘Veropedia Inc’ – a Wikipedia-related website which has Amazon advertising on it! And a previous contest by Danny has awarded Amazon gift vouchers as prizes. For someone like me, this ‘core competition’ clearly acts as a classic form of understated adverting for Veropedia, and has a clear commercial aspect that involves Amazon (who to many of course, are a monopoly). Are these Wikipedia principles? The core list here looks like it could be culled from Veropedia’s ‘To do’ list! Does Wikipedia intend the two organisations to work this closely?

Would you rather they compete? Because competition is, according to you, inherently a form of advertising. Danny (talk) 03:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure what you mean. I wrote 'Competitions are usually a form of advertising'. As for the other type of competition, I'd rather our articles stayed in Wikipedia. --Matt Lewis (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Why is the ‘core’ so important anyway? I do not agree with the competition’s forceful introduction at all – the most shameful thing about WP to me is not the ‘small’ amount of Grade A articles, but the enormous amount of lesser ones that are full of bias, blunder and cant! These don’t get noticed and readers can be seriously mislead by them. ‘Core article’ anomalies usually get noticed and corrected pretty quickly, even if the article itself has stylistic faults. I’ve clicked on a few of Danny’s biographies - invitingly listed on his user page. Some are obviously in-depth, but a number of the ones I instinctively looked at (Middle Eastern and Iraqi ones) have historical prose with no citations at all! They have very un-WP language too, like ‘a did x, but b still insists it was y’. Some of these articles have been on Wikipedia since 2003 – and are still without any kind of citation or sources today! No-one but robots have edited some of them since Danny wrote them four years ago. Obviously ‘core’ is what Danny believes in - but clearly at the expense of old articles being left as kind-of ‘informative stubs’. I cannot agree with this.

Many people may find my judgements ‘over the top’ – but it only depends how critically and seriously you view Wikipedia, in my opinion.

Bias is surely inherent in a competition like this – so why do it? Even if the articles were chosen at random, it would be unfair on the articles that have missed out. I don’t believe that any article should really be actively promoted above another on WP. The ‘Featured Articles’ already stretch Wikipedia’s supposedly neutral ethos here for me, though I can understand why they run them.

Will the competition work? As someone else has suggested, this place is far too competitive as it is – and such excitement doesn’t actually make for good articles in my opinion. Much of WP is floppy, under-researched and full of dropped-in chunks. People consistently boast about how many articles they have contributed to. Would this extra excess actually help this situation? Encouraging as many people as possible to make contributions where and when they probably wouldn’t normally make them? How many competition entries will actually be good? How many will mess with things that are already fine?

Ethically speaking, can someone (or some few) really be given the right to judge any one ‘improvement’ as being better than another? It is very un-Wikipedia, which is surely supposed to work by consensus!

And finally - money should never be involved here! Wikipedia simply needs to be watertight on bias to live up to its claims of neutrality. The very glimpse of internal bias ought to be seriously looked at. I worry that few on WP are taking matters like this seriously enough, and that WP will gradually get more and more corruptible.

Btw, I noticed that someone else who criticised this competition had his contribution completely removed. Whoever did that - please do not do it to me. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Lewis (talk • contribs) 11:39, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

I counted fifteen exclamation marks in your essay. From the standpoint of an editor, it really diminishes your hyperbole. Danny (talk) 03:31, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
It looks I've got some points to exclaim, doesn't it? You've inserted your belated comments twice into the actual text of my post. Is that good form? --Matt Lewis (talk) 15:56, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Why are you insistent on picking fault with this contest? It's quite straightforward. The selection of articles was chosen - does it matter how or why? Good editors are sure to find something they are able to contribute towards and submit. If you really can't find an article that suits you as an editor to improve, maybe sit tight and wait around for the next competition. Next competition you say? Well, let's be hopeful their might be one, what with all the attempt to criticise this one. I believe that if you run a competition, you're entitled to set the rules and parameters. If you don't like the rules, don't enter.
And I cannot believe you're complaining about free money. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 17:05, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

The usual WP mild-mannered 'ignore the entire meaning' approach to criticism! What a schooling! I'm starting to really resent Wikipedia I really am. Free money? What a wind-up! --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:54, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

Perhaps if you could make your point in fewer than 200 words, people wouldn't mind applying their full attention to it. And why has it taken you this long to realise Wikipedia is in such bad shape? Considering the money isn't coming out of the WMF's pocket - I think you should appreciate it more. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 18:08, 25 November 2007 (UTC)
Quit wasting your time writing thousands of words in complaint and start improving articles! Seems simple enough to me. A few responses 1) Money does not equal bias 2)Danny is not going to subvert the entire encyclopedia with a mere $500 dollars, even if he is trying, which I doubt, and 3)Your opinion about the core is just that, opinion. If you want smaller articles fixed, shell out your own money. Wrad (talk) 02:10, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
money, money, money. --Matt Lewis (talk) 03:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree with what Matt has to say. His original post may be long but it makes all the valid points. At least this contest shouldn't be advertised on watchlists. Amit@Talk 15:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks Amit. It is interesting to me that although we appear to be towards different ends of the political spectrum regarding markets, we both agree on this abuse of Wikipedia. Perhaps its because we both understand what money (not to mention free markets) can do! If anywhere really isn't the place, it's here.--Matt Lewis (talk) 17:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Well just keep crossing your fingers and hope the whole encyclopedia doesn't topple! :) But seriously, I'm witholding most judgement until after the contest is over and I can see the results. Although I have no fears that the contest will end in doom and despair, I do wonder exactly what will come of it, as I'm sure everyone does. Wrad (talk) 17:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can we add good articles in the list?

I want to add Iran which is a good article in the list.--Seyyed(t-c) 17:00, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

You may add Iran. Danny (talk) 17:15, 25 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Where's the money coming from?

Where is the $500 coming from? --Tango (talk) 01:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Good question. --Kushalt 01:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
My pocket. Danny (talk) 01:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Good for you. I suggest you make that clearer - if people think the WMF is paying, it could give a seriously wrong impression. --Tango (talk) 21:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Sounded like a valid question when I read someone write

"Since wikipedia is offering to pay people for fixing articles [...]"

earlier in this page. (* scratches head) Seems logical when considering that there is no reason for Wikimedia Foundation to give prizes as Amazon gift cards. (lol)

Why did you not contest the above quoted statement? Did it escape you? --Kushalt 01:41, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I did not see that statement. This contest is sponsored privately, and is not under the auspicies of the WMF. Danny (talk) 01:53, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Featured Articles in the list?

I noticed Atheism, which I and a few others worked rather hard to bring to featured status, is in the list. I hope the judges will take into consideration whether an article already had featured status (especially, recently-promoted articles). — BRIAN0918 • 2007-11-26 01:26Z

If you mark it, it will be considered. See also mail I just sent you. Danny (talk) 01:48, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Could you add ...

Could you add CEATEC to the list? This could help in our effort to speedily make it one of the good articles. --Kushalt 02:23, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Sorry, but I don't think it is one of the core topics. Danny (talk) 02:29, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Its OK. Thanks for answering. --Kushalt 03:16, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Offer to help in a small way

(If there is a better place to list this feel free to move it) I notice there are several countries/regions on the Core Article List that could use a section (and maybe a splinter article) on their wine industry-like North America, New South Wales, Uruguay, South Africa, etc. As a member of the Wine Project, I have a keen interest in helping to improve the project's coverage of Wine related articles. Since there is no particular "wine related" core article, I will be glad to offer my services in helping anyone working on one of these articles in the research and creation of any wine related content. I don't care about the prize money, I just want to see better content. Just drop me a note on my talk page. This contest is a fantastic idea (like Veropedia) so I wish everyone the best. AgneCheese/Wine 03:07, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Query

To be absolutely clear - do the articles submitted to this contest have to go through FAC? I've seen a few references above that suggest that entries must become FAs. In two weeks, that is nearly impossible. Editors might be able to get the articles to such a level, but FACs usually takes longer than two weeks in and of themselves and if everyone in the contest submitted their articles, FAC would be more overwhelmed than it already is. I was under the impression that the committee was going to judge the quality of the improvements independent of the ranking of the articles. Awadewit | talk 03:09, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

No, they do not. Danny (talk) 03:18, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Cool. Now I can go back to what I love best - writing articles. :) Awadewit | talk 04:01, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Quick question

$US?

Seems like an interesting idea, if I wasn't in the middle of final high school exams I would probably give it a shot. Simulato (talk) 08:32, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

The price is in US Dollars yes. Good luck with your exams - perhaps there will be a better opportunity for you to enter if this contest happens again. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 14:13, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] This contest offends me

We have 1000s of editors - 1000s of people working their tails off for the love of it. Wikipedia has grown from one article to millions of articles without an incentive of money. The incentive instead is creation. It offends me greatly that money is being brought into the mix. If you want to consider revamping or reintroducing WikiMoney, I encourage you. But real money creates a very different incentive. Keep real money incentives out of Wikipedia. Kingturtle (talk) 14:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I really don't see the offense. This is a contest, not a Pay-by-the-article type deal. Yes we have created millions of articles with few of these contests working as incentives but sadly we have become more of a resource on Pokemon characters then we have on some of the core articles that any good encyclopedia should cover. To that extent I applaud the ideals of this contest. AgneCheese/Wine 14:55, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I could understand you perhaps if this money was being offered from Wikipedia itself (the Wikimedia Foundation), however it is not. It's being offered as a way of rewarding some good quality editing to our most basic articles at Wikipedia. I'd like to point you in the direction of my userpage, which has a message on it that rings out some sad truths. While work of the great editors at Wikipedia is very much appreciated, something somewhere clearly isn't working out right. This contest to me seems like a good way to help Wikipedia. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 15:05, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Agne27, reward the Wikipedians with praise, pictures of flowers and images of medals. If you want better core articles, then edit them yourself. Recruit editors. Campaign. Advertise. Revive the WikiMoney system. But please keep real money out of this project. Kingturtle (talk) 15:08, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
"reward the Wikipedians with praise, pictures of flowers and images of medals"
Non-tangable rewards have their limitations. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 15:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Praise is quite tangible. Kingturtle (talk) 15:15, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I just think you shouldn't advertise this on Watchlists. If it's a user taking the initiative it should be limited to the userspace. Amit@Talk 15:14, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
And It's against the spirit of wikipedia, whether you are happy with the end result or not Amit@Talk 15:17, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
The "spirit of Wikipedia" is to be free source of knowledge to everyone. Nothing in this contest hinders or diminishing that spirit. In contrast it does a great service to enhancing that spirit. AgneCheese/Wine 15:22, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
All the points in Matt's post (why the core anyway) appear valid to me. Amit@Talk 15:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Why not the "core"? While I do think more can be included, our "core articles" tend to be some of the foundations of world knowledge. Any encyclopedia that aims to be of any quality use should focus on things like the core articles. It is probably the easiest way to make the most impact to the project. AgneCheese/Wine 15:28, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I respect the sentiments of those who started it, and agree with the spirit, but given the way wikipedia really "works" I doubt that it's the "easiest way" to achieve the purpose. Amit@Talk 15:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know. I suspect that in the next two weeks the overall quality of our Core articles will certainly be more positively impacted then if the contest wasn't announced. Even if its only 10-15 articles improved, those are 10-15 of our most needed articles. AgneCheese/Wine 15:42, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

This idea is problematic not because of what it offers in this instance, but because of what it opens the door to. I have no problem with a cash prize for excellent article writing (I'm sure it will stimulate some efforts) but if Wikipedia is to allow such a thing, we had better lay down some rules real quick restricting the types of articles that this can be applied to (e.g. no articles on existing businesses, living persons, current political controversies, etc.), the objective standards that must be met, and who can judge (based on criteria such as established dedication to NPOV). Cheers! bd2412 T 15:44, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

What do you mean "opens the door"? Wikipedia:Reward board, Wikipedia:Bounty board (SEWilco (talk) 16:04, 26 November 2007 (UTC))
Thanks SEWilco. My jaw dropped when I read those. People should read them! --Matt Lewis (talk) 17:26, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Basically all I've seen of those is people ignoring them. Wrad (talk) 17:49, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
With the Reward board contributors are paid, while with the Bounty board the Wikimedia Foundation gets a donation. In both cases, someone is paying to improve the encyclopedia. The Reward board also offers direct payment with someone's work rather than the indirect work transfer through money. But payment offers have existed, and you can already earn more than the $100 offered by this contest. (SEWilco (talk) 17:52, 26 November 2007 (UTC))

In my book, editing for real money goes completely against the core fabric of Wikipedia. If we move in the direction of real money rewards for work here, the spirit of editing will change drastically. Core articles or not, all articles deserve time and energy and care. Paying money for editors here moves us in the direction of wealthy people having more control here than non-wealthy people.

The tit-for-tat requests on the Reward board are beautiful examples of the spirit of Wikipedia – bartering editing for editing – exchanging labor for labor. And at least the real money in Bounty board gets recycled into the infrastructure.

please keep real money out of this project. Kingturtle (talk) 21:33, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I take it you're totally against donating to the WMF then? --Sagaciousuk (talk) 01:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Money? What ever happened to the thumbnails of flowers, cookies and barnstars? Editing to improve Wikipedia should be it's own reward, not money. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 01:18, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

If I had a choice between improving an article and receiving $100 cash, or improving an article and receiving a 200x180 pixel picture of some random flower or some cute bowl of heart-shaped cookies, I would choose the former. Pictures of flowers don't pay rent (the exception being Van Gogh).--WaltCip (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 02:26, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
What if you recieved neither money nor pictures of flowers? Would you still remain part of Wikipedia? Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 02:33, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
You're missing the point. People entering this competition are not brand new editors only starting to edit for the money. They are existing contributors, being encouraged to focus their efforts and good work into improving some core articles which need fixing. The fact money is being offered instead of images of flowers/medals is neither here nor there. The latter are nice to give as spontaneous reward, praising someone for something that someone else recognised on-the-fly. If editors knew that they were only improving this set of articles to get an image posted on their talk page - it's not so special. Since it's difficult to sort out other types of reward that would be appreciated - money seems the better option. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 02:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I never said that people will join to earn money. What I said is there are thousands of users that edit daily and have never gotten any praise, recognition or images, and yet, they keep contributing, not expecting anything. And especially at a time when the Wikimedia Foundation is always crying for money (that counter at the top hasn't gone away), frivolously throwing it away dosen't help. There are plenty of people who would do it for free. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 04:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
And there are tens of thousands of people who play Texas Hold em or fantasy football for fun and for free. That fine but so is the fun of competition and playing for a prize. Its not evil, it just something different and goes along with the overwhelming spirit of making Wikipedia better. That fact that some people want to have a friendly competition with a cash prize does not diminish anything that anyone one else does on Wikipedia. So come on, give it a break. AgneCheese/Wine 04:12, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Fine. I'll give it a break, but I will say this: money does nothing but corrupt. Flowers just grow. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 04:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm willing to accept any of your evil money which you want to get rid of. (SEWilco (talk) 05:15, 27 November 2007 (UTC))
Give me your bank account number. After a small investment of your funds, you will get all my money. I promise! Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 00:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I am stunned at the resistance to this. What is the problem? Money corrupts? I assume you paid for your computer, house, car etc. Unless you live in a hut at the top of an Appalachian bald, these kinds of complaints make no sense. IvoShandor (talk) 13:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
That may be true. But I am still opposed to this. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 00:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Let's see, I have $147.83 in my pocket, I must be a corrupt evil bastard. I remember that time I gave $100 to a friend as a loan. It corrupted him, he is now a serial killer, who collects $100 bills for writing about Roman architecture on Wikipedia in his spare time. ;)IvoShandor (talk) 14:01, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, you are. You are going straight to hell. So am I. And everyone else. I'm just worried that money will corrupt the judgement of some. Not everyone. Pacific Coast Highway {ho ho ho • under the tree} 00:46, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Er, so Google should scrap the Google Summer of Code because it pays student interns to contribute to open-source software projects? Or maybe open-source hackers should stop getting hired by companies to contribute to open-source projects? Hmmm... maybe Wikimedia Foundation should stop paying Tim Starling and Brion Vibber for maintaining MediaWiki? (I'm being sarcastic by the way.) This is a private contest with private contributors paying other contributors to work on core topics. How is that antithetical to building up the "sum of human knowledge" or the vision-mission of Wikimedia Foundation, which says nothing about monetary aspects? --seav (talk) 03:30, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] People who don't like the contest.....

It is hard to believe the backlash that is happening here. I haven't read all of the above, but I'll say this:

  • If you don't like the contest, ignore it.
If you cannot ignore it, maybe a Wikibreak until December 9?
I cannot ignore something I see as going against the heart of Wikipedia. Kingturtle (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
This contest isn't the end of Wikipedia. It's a bloody contest. You don't even have to participate; you can just keep going and make constructive edits (which I assume you do).--WaltCip (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
  • If you don't like the the fact that the watchlist has a message about it, dismiss it.
It is very simple to click that little box that says [Dismiss] to make it go away.
It's also very simple to be patronising rather than engage with people's objections. Lurker (said · done) 14:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
And clicking dismiss also gets rid of the legitimate messages, and the handy links to pages such as the ArbCom elections page. Lurker (said · done) 14:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm using a workaround in my monobook because the ad seems Neopian in my eyes - blatant, insulting, and a bloody eyesore that only serves to provoke. If you want it, see Wikipedia:Village pump (policy), but be aware it will also kill the ArbCom elections notes as well. -Jéské (Blah v^_^v) 05:23, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
  • Most importantly, if are really against the contest, then do not participate.
That's like saying if you are really against racism, then don't participate in racism. Sure don't participate, but there's also an obligation to be an activist. Kingturtle (talk) 21:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
It's absolutely nothing like racism, and the analogy is quite ludicrous. This is a purely benign, voluntary contest. Nobody is being victimized in this contest, and people are receiving monetary rewards for good contributions, those of which are also voluntary.--WaltCip (talk) 22:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
All things aside, there's nothing ludicrous about the analogy, it's quite apt. Amit@Talk 13:06, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Comparing this to racism? I'd have to agree and say that is simply ridiculous. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:41, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Oy, I wasn't comparing this to racism. I was giving an example of why choosing not to participate is not activism. It is passive and potentially harmful to suggesting that "if you are really against __________, then don't participate in __________." A proposal to sit out rather than sit-in directly contradicts "Civil Disobedience" or "Letter from Birmingham Jail" One must be active in her or his stance against what one considers harmful. Kingturtle (talk) 16:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC) P.S. To be clear, I am not having a sit-in here. I have not and will not do anything to stop this activity. I only am bringing my opinion to the table and asking on Village pump (policy)‎ to think about policies to address real money and wikipedia. Kingturtle (talk) 16:58, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't like the idea either, but I haven't lost any sleep over it. - Rjd0060 (talk) 16:24, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

    • You are advising people who don't like something to stay away from Wikipedia until it is over? WTF? Lurker (said · done) 17:46, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
No, but I see why thats the impression you got. I've changed the wording a bit. - Rjd0060 (talk) 17:47, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

If people are not going to be constructive or conduct themselves in a positive manner, then yes, they should say syanara. Frankly, if we were to tell everyone in said situation to not let the door hit themselves on the way out, then only the crickets would be heard. -Pilotguy contact tower 18:12, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

I have a positive and constructive statement to make: If Wikipedia deals with corruption it will survive. --Matt Lewis (talk) 19:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wrong, Wrong, Wrong. If you don't like the contest, Win all the prizes, then refuse the money. - That'll show us Veropedians good. WilyD 19:56, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

If you don't like the contest, edit articles of your choice to improve the encyclopedia. (SEWilco (talk) 20:11, 26 November 2007 (UTC))

All of these are great suggestions! - Rjd0060 (talk) 20:58, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Wow this is a great soapbox for me! If you like the contest but don't need any money, please edit CEATEC. I am willing to work with you. --Kushalt 21:20, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

  • All things aside, there's nothing ludicrous about the analogy, it's quite apt In what reality? IvoShandor (talk) 14:02, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

People who don't like the contest should... Raise objections to it on this talk page. That's how we do things round here. Handily, it is what people are doing. Lurker (said · done) 14:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

People who do like this contest should not....

  • Suggest people who object to it go on a Wikibreak until it is over
  • Acccuse people who do object of not being constructive.
  • Propose hitting people with sticks
  • Take things personally rather than addressing peoples' concerns in a civilised debate

Lurker (said · done) 14:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

If you don't like my comments, and they haven't broken any policies, please ignore them. Everybody has a different POV, and I know that. - Rjd0060 16:06, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] NHS

Would the NHS be counted as a core topic? Massive organisation and a contentious issue in the UK, with a budget 4 times the annual GDP of Kenya. RHB - Talk 17:30, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Not for this contest. Danny (talk) 17:31, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Ok, thanks anyway. RHB - Talk 17:38, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
I had a quick word with Danny about this and decided that this would be a suitable core article. It's been added to the list. Thanks for the suggestion, ELIMINATORJR 23:03, 26 November 2007 (UTC)
Thanks, I'll have a go at it. RHB - Talk 17:21, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Can you contribute more money to the jackpot

I like the idea of the contest and would be willing to contribute some more money to the jackpot, but I wasn't sure if this would be encouraged or discouraged. Remember (talk) 23:19, 26 November 2007 (UTC)

Along the same line, I would be happy to PhotoShop up some shiny pixels if it means anything. :) — xDanielx T/C\R 05:39, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Go away

I don't care about your contest and I don't want it advertised at the top of a lot of pages. Promote it on your own, please. Jtrainor (talk) 16:20, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

There is a dismiss button, I don't really care about it either, just like I don't care about arbitration committee elections, but all of this is at the top of my watchlist. I care so little I hardly even notice it, and haven't even dismissed it. I don't understand the sheer anger this seems to have caused. I thought it was a nice idea to reward people for improving the encyclopedia. Barnstars kinda suck anyway. IvoShandor (talk) 16:24, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

This is kinda harsh ... especially coming less than 24 hours after my first barnstar ... lol (No offense to you, IvoShandor!) --Kushalt 17:43, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Barnstars only suck when you don't receive one. (COUGH!)--WaltCip (talk) 17:46, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Haha. Not really. Ever received a "because I like you" barnstar? Wrad (talk) 22:44, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Barnstars are nice but they don't get essential articles fixed up. They simply acknowledge previous work. What this contest does is drive people to go and edit, and produce quality content. I am not sure if there are people who edit purely in the hope they'll get a barnstar for it, and if there are I worry somewhat. It's certainly not what barnstars were intended for anyway. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:59, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I haven't received a Barnstar, period. Probably because I spend more time on XFD than on editing the encyclopedia. Not like King Starfish over here...--WaltCip (talk) 16:03, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Location

Given that this is not an official project of the WMF or anything like that, but is rather just a (fairly elaborate) offer of the sort made at WP:RB, could this just be moved onto that page? I don't really see the need for it to occupy mainspace by itself when there's already a page for such things. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 17:17, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

Bingo Amit@Talk 21:05, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a unique contest and as you can see, with all this drama on the discussion page, it would be more challenging to manage. And this is also a contest, not a "do this for that" request. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:57, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not sure why the difficulty in managing the contest should be a consideration here, if we're looking at things from the foundation's perspective. A lot of individual users here probably have goals that would be easier to accomplish with the implicit support of the WMF, but the WMF needs to look after its own interests rather than worry about that kind of stuff. It's important to keep a bright line between official and unofficial actions. -Hit bull, win steak(Moo!) 16:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I think this should probably be in the user space, since it's a contest run by an individual user. I also don't see why it's on the watchlist notice - do we need to establish a formal procedure for putting things on the notice? With an opportunity for people to object (I'm thinking 24 hour discussion, closed by any admin, consensus not required, just a general approval - roughly a simple majority, but with reasons taken into account, not votes). --Tango (talk) 01:05, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I think it's fine here. It at least makes the contest more credible and allows for the maximum number of people to see it in order to make it fairer and allow people to have a chance to enter. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 01:27, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Opposed

Im in great support of expanding the wikipedia but financial incentives are wrong. I am opposed to the idea. It goes against the very nature of those who contribute not for financial gain but out of respect for increasing world knowledge. This should definately not be appearing onto peoples watchlist. Its great that you have devoted time and effort to this and for that I thank you. But its wrong. LordHarris (talk) 21:28, 27 November 2007 (UTC)

You might want to read previous discussions on this. If you don't want it on your watchlist, you can always click dismiss. Wrad (talk) 22:42, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I have clicked dismiss. I have also read past discussions. I just wanted to add my opinion on this project as I felt so strongly. My argument was valid and its in line with a lot of other users. You should never let something go unopposed especially when you consider it in direct confrontation with your own thoughts on the matter. It doesnt meen what I am saying is right, it's just another opnion in the discussion and opinions should be heard. LordHarris (talk) 22:48, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
Sounds fair enough, I just wondered whether you might want to join those discussions. Wrad (talk) 23:10, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I cannot understand your point at all. If it was a scheme whereby editors were being paid per article, I might be able to agree - but certainly not for crediting someone for awesome work on articles that need it most. I certainly do not see how flooding this discussion page with repetitive and unexplained oppositions really helps - especially when some of the points stated have already been addressed. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:54, 27 November 2007 (UTC)
I too actually have been much happier if it had been a donation to the foundation in the editor's honour. Monetary prizes send the wrong message. DGG (talk) 04:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Define: "Wrong message". --Sagaciousuk (talk) 04:45, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I'll define it for him - the "wrong message" gives the impression that editors should be paid to make encyclopedic contributions. Thus, if they are not paid, they do not work, and they seek some other venue to profit.--WaltCip (talk) 15:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
and thus, that our articles in here are influenced primarily by spas and coi. They are , a little--that's what we should be fighting against. The "wrong message" is that we actually want to encourage that. DGG (talk) 04:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This contest is almost like the ongoing meta:Philip Greenspun illustration project, which aims to pay illustrators to create badly-needed core illustrations, but this time, the illustration project is an official Wikimedia activity where the money comes from a private grant instead of a contest where the money comes from non-Wikimedia Foundation-affiliated contributors. But I see no one vehemently opposed to the illustration project. (Granted, the illustration project was started with very little fanfare.) --seav (talk) 05:17, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I don't think this contest was intended to start with fanfare, but it's nice to gain some exposure so as many editors as possible have a chance to enter. Fair's fair. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 14:21, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a contest, not a purchase. Most of these contestants won't get paid, as there are only a few prizes. (SEWilco (talk) 14:46, 28 November 2007 (UTC))
Indeed - if people are as constructive as they should be, it should be considered more of a raffle than anything else.--WaltCip (talk) 15:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Why? As Wilco notes, it is a contest. It is a friendly competition, in the spirit of Wikipedia, that challenges Wikipedians to make the most impact on our core encyclopedia articles. This "pay per article" stuff is just a bunch of strawmen and the moral outrage for this contest is misplaced. AgneCheese/Wine 15:47, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Where we disagree is on what is in the spirit of Wikipedia. You say real money rewards for work here is in the spirit of Wikipedia. We say it is not. Kingturtle (talk) 15:50, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I say a motivation to improve the content and worth of the encyclopedia is the spirit of Wikipedia. I believe this contest is fully in line with promoting that spirit. The description of this as "pay for content" is needlessly off based. It's a fun little contest that can have meaningful impact on the project. AgneCheese/Wine 15:54, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
I agree. I, for one thing, intend to do some work in these articles if I find the time, fully aware of the fact that copy-editing and other Gnome-type work will not get me any prizes.
Or will it? Perhaps now is the time to activate my network of moles inside the Wikimedia Foundation and the various Wikipedia institutions. My gambling debts are not getting any lower, you know, so I could use some help.
Now if you will excuse me, I have to see a man about a horse. Waltham, The Duke of 16:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
See how healthy it is to have a discussion! I think the idea of rewarding editors for hard work is most definately in the spirit of wikipedia and I agree with you on that point - but financial rewards go against what the projects about. It is about providing free knowledge to the world. Someone has to pay the hosting bills but we shouldnt be paying the contributors. I applaud your efforts to expand the articles on the list but think that barnstars, thank yous' and a hearty well done is much more inline with the spirit of the project. Also on a more personal note I noticed Winston Churchill was on the list. As a key contributor to the article, with a lot of the references on there coming from me I feel sad that no one ever considered giving me a cash price for my work. It seems unfair that all the past edits in the history of the wiki are going unrewarded financially. Why start now is all I'm asking. Just give lots and lots of barnstars!!!! LordHarris (talk) 17:22, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Just had a great idea! The $500 rewards are going ahead so theres no stopping them but why not get more users to contribute knowing they will get a reward as well - Why not get the judging team to award Wikiawards to the runners up and ordinary barnstars to everyone who contributes!!! That way more people will take on an article and improve it! LordHarris (talk) 17:26, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your comment "it's not fair" - now's as good a time as any to enter the contest if you feel you deserve your fair share. But it wouldn't be a contest if everyone got an equal amount of non-mitigating prizes, and a Barnstar really wouldn't be that great a reward for a contest (see the downfall of Esperanza, esp. Barnstar Brigade). As for awarding barnstars to the runners-up, I'd be content with that.--WaltCip (talk) 17:36, 28 November 2007 (UTC)
My "it's not fair" comment was tongue in cheek sarcasm but I'm glad you agree about awarding barnstars to the runners up. I agree about the equal prizes though - it is a contest. What do the organisers think about awarding barnstars? LordHarris (talk) 17:58, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

I think it is great idea to award a barnstar to all who participated, and will try to do so. Danny (talk) 18:24, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reward money vs. Ad revenue

In a project like this, shouldn't there be some full disclaimer that the purpose in making these "important" articles (I love how Aaron Sorkin is apparently as important as the Age of Enlightenment, btw) better is so that eventually they can be ported over to a site that stands to make money off of them through ad revenue? I know that, ostensibly, all are aware that the GFDL allows commercial re-use of material on Wikipedia, but would people be as excited about their little prizes if they understood that they are being offered in order to raise money and awareness for a corporation rather than the ostensibly more idealistic Wikipedia itself? This issue (and many others related to Veropedia and similar companies attempting to make a profit off of anonymous contributors) are demonstrating clearly the limitations and misuse of the GFDL as opposed to other copyleft systems like the non-commercial use CC licenses. Sites that make money off of Wikipedia without creating any actual content of their own certainly violate the spirit of the license if not the letter of it, IMHO.ChrisStansfield Contribs 14:43, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia is being improved all the time. This contest is just helping to accelerate that improvement. Veropedia puts back into Wikipedia, and is already encouraging this via a donation link to the WMF on every article on the site, as well as doing all editing through Wikipedia. Veropedia is also not aiming to compete with Wikipedia, but run with and alongside it. I believe this to be a unique approach, where as other competative online encyclopedias either directly mirror/cache the content from Wikipedia with no reguard to quality, or try to make content up from scratch - with some strange results. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 15:25, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

ChrisStansfield, your point is vital, and it's one I've raised directly with the person who is apparently the owner of Veropedia. Please see User talk:Danny#Veropedia question (diff). No response that I have received to date indicates that the parties related to this for-profit (whose actions on Wikipedia, as a matter of fact, may bring about a benefit for the for-profit entity with which they are affiliated) have considered the appearance of conflict of interest. This is a serious concern for me, and should be for all editors. Wikipedia does not accept advertising—including insidious, "insider" advertising that has the potential to grow into something significant if this is allowed to continue. Those who are concerned about this mis-use of Wikipedia need to bring this to broader attention. This issue is nascent, but this is the time to examine it. Or would we rather have a big controversy a year from now? Does anyone have thoughts on how to proceed with gaining community input, or preferably, asking for a position statement from the appropriate parties? –Outriggr § 00:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Well, I'm just doing what I was planning to do anyway. Core articles need improvement, I've always thought that, as I'm sure you know, Outriggr. I'm not just going to stop improving those articles because someone is benefiting from it... I guess I just don't get what you're saying. Wrad (talk) 01:14, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That's just the thing about contributing to wikipedia - we do it for free. We know our content will copied by others under the license. We know they can sell it (as long as they acknowledge it). So can we, if we so chose. If you don't want you write to be sold by others who are in business, then do not write. If, however, you are truly interested in the dissemination of knowledge, perhaps you should be happy that others are picking up our material. Awadewit | talk 12:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Wow, that's an interesting way to discard the whole idea of moral rights or copyright in general. "If you want [knowldege/information/art/etc] disseminated, you shouldn't be concerned with who's making money off if it. Just shut up and be happy your work is being seen." Seems rather like the arguments being made to the striking WGA right now. The simple truth is that, if wikimedia insists on using a GFDL license, it should make the terms of that license FAR clearer to new contributors who believe they are creating material, for free, for the benefit of society and not for profiteers. As in, on the Welcome Screen in big bold letters clear. 206.218.208.57 (talk) 18:08, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Negative effects section

[edit] Initial discussion

As you can see in the page history, user:Til Eulenspiegel has violated the 3 revert rule. I am not going to do the same. Here is my proposed addition to this page. All pages in Wikipedia are editable, especially project pages. "Original research" does not apply in this namespace.

Normally, improvements are judged based on consensus from everyone interested in watching a certain page. This contest is detrimental to Wikipedia because it encourages improvements to be judged by three people who may know nothing about the topic. Bensaccount (talk) 01:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Umm... In order to violate 3RR, you have to revert more than three times... Why didn't you just bring it up on the talk page after the first revert? Wrad (talk) 01:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Because that is the responsibility of the user who does the reversion. And seeing as that user apparently has no interest in discussing his reasoning here I will now restore my addition. Bensaccount (talk) 01:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I think if you are going to make a claim like "This is detrimental to wikipedia" on the project page, it needs to be verified, so verifiability applies. There is no way you can verify this, because it is your opinion. Please do not sabotage this effort which is bringing a lot of articles up to snuff at no cost to you personally. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Please take a moment to read which namespace verifiability applies to, then restate your argument. You are tragically incorrect. Bensaccount (talk) 02:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You reverted just as much as he did. This is like two little kids in a sandbox. Sheesh. You'll both get yourselves blocked. Wrad (talk) 02:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Is that a threat? Bensaccount (talk) 02:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Wow. Umm.. No. It's just a fact that if you edit war too much, you get blocked. I'm not going to report you, but it's not too hard to deduce that you are in an edit war. If it continues, you'll probably be blocked. Just quit reverting each other and take a good look at the etiquette rules. Wrad (talk) 02:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Then why are you interrupting us? I had just informed user:Til Eulenspiegel that verifiability does not apply to project pages, so his reason for removing my addition was incorrect. If there is no further disagreement I will restore the section in question. Bensaccount (talk) 02:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That revert will probably last about three seconds. It won't accomplish anything at all. I'm trying to be an intermediary, but apparently you are determined to fight. Wrad (talk) 02:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I am trying to resolve a disagreement with a user who will not engage in discussion. If this user refuses to state a reason for his removal of my addition I see no reason why I should not add it. And if he thereupon reverts, the blame lies entirely upon him for not discussing beforehand. His previous reason is incorrect because verifiability does not apply to the project namespace. Bensaccount (talk) 02:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
So that means therefore you are allowed to put your own unverified opinions on the project namespace? I don't think so! Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia-space pages, as with any wiki-page, should reflect the consensus of the community, and I don't think you have that consensus, especially since you're getting reverted so much. Wrad (talk) 02:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Actually no. They should reflect the consensus of those members of the community who care enough to engage in discussion about them. As it stands consensus is 100% yes, as no member of the community has stated a reason against inclusion (other than verifiability, which does not apply). Bensaccount (talk) 02:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That's a complete non-sequitur. For starters it assumes that the people watching the article know a fair amount about it (false), but more importantly it doesn't establish that the contest is, in fact, detrimental to Wikipedia. The judges are neither editing the articles themselves nor will they the final arbiters of the articles' content. Anyone who tries to justify their changes on the basis of "but the Core Contest judges liked them!" is not likely to get very far. Also, this is a single two-week contest and will involve a tiny fraction of Wikipedia's articles; let's try to keep perspective in mind. – Steel 02:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Normally, improvements are judged based on consensus from everyone interested in watching a certain page. This contest is detrimental to Wikipedia because it encourages improvements to be judged by three people who may know or care very little about the topic.

The reason people normally try to improve pages is because they care. The contest sets a precedent for changing these motives , and flawed motives usually lead to flawed results. Bensaccount (talk) 02:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Real money is being coughed up as a prize for this contest. I would say that's evidence of caring. – Steel 02:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
But the money is not making edits. People who make edits for money care about what Danny will think, not about the topic. Bensaccount (talk) 03:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not a vote, first of all, and you can't start a negotiation by ignoring the other parties. There is no consensus here. What you want to add to the page is nothing more than a rant. It doesn't belong. That's my opinion. I don't want users to see a wikispace page full of rantings. It's not professional. If you have a problem with this project, oppose it in a professional way, like others on this talk page have done. Wrad (talk) 02:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You need to calm down. Bensaccount (talk) 02:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm quite calm, actually. I think it's apparent to everyone here that you are the one who is not. Just felt the need to state some facts in the face of your inciteful language. Wrad (talk) 02:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
"inciteful" is not a word. I think you mean "insightful". Bensaccount (talk) 02:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Your complaints are anything but insightful. – Steel 03:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh that hurts. Bensaccount (talk) 03:03, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, I did mean "inciteful", as in "inciting people to anger and emotion" or "itching for a fight rather than using the voice of calm reason." The only thing insightful about your comments is the insight they provide into your hunger for an edit war. Don't expect me to come back to this discussion. I believe enough "insight" has now been provided. Wrad (talk) 03:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Numbered objections to objections

Bensaccount, I don't consider it good behavior for someone to mar and disrupt a project page with his or her personal comments and opinions. You should place such opinions on the talk page, and if they are well received by other members of the project, your ideas will make it onto the main page. In fact, I think you should have placed your comments into one of the many sections that are already here. Now to my specific objections to your objection:

  1. Wikipedia is free--not just as in free beer but also as in freedom. Wikipedians are free to create such contests and this one, and people are free to join such contests, and people who object to such contests are free to not join; however, attempting to disrupt the project places one on the margins of his or her freedom within Wikipedia.
  2. Wikipedia needs improvement. With 2.1 million articles--only a few thousand of which are either "good" or "featured" quality, Wikipedia desperately needs major improvements. It cannot harm Wikipedia for those improvements to come through cash inducements.
  3. Wikipedia is not socialism or communism or capitalism or libertarianism or any system of economics or any system of government. If your whole objection of this project is based on your misunderstanding of what Wikipedia is, your argument would fail.
  4. Wikipedia is big. There are a great many articles for you to improve, read or ignore without having to join this contest or project.
  5. You don't have to accept the money. If you believe an article on that list needs to be improved, but you would never edit an article for money, you are still free to edit that article for free and, should you "win," reject to money.
  6. Wikipedia uses references. A "good" wikipedia article has references so that editors can verify claims. Even editors who are judging contests can benefit from these references; therefore, it is not necessary for the judges to know everything before they judge articles. The references will help them determine how accurate the claims the the articles are, and articles with no references (or bogus references) can be judged appropriately.
  7. Benefit to outside projects is not harm to Wikipedia. That Veropedia stands to benefit from this project in no way detracts from Wikipedia. The fact that Veropedia is going to use its own income stream to induce editors to improve Wikipedia guarantees improvement for Wikipedia. Your claim of "harm" to Wikipedia from this project does not stand up against reason.

--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 03:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This prepackaged response does not address my actual objection: I am fine with editing for money, the problem is that improvements are judged by three people who may know or care very little about the topic. Improvements are normally judged based on consensus from everyone interested in watching a certain page. These are people who may have created the page or contributed heavily to it because they care about the topic. These people will have their caring judgement overruled if the new judges pay money to have their own, uninformed & indifferent improvements made. Bensaccount (talk) 03:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Assuming that's true for the sake of argument, even so, what the judges decide to be improvements will only affect the outcome of the contest. The decision will not affect what ultimately stays or goes in the article; that will still be decided via the regular methods (talk page consensus, etc). – Steel 03:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
The motive of the editors will change. It is possible to make an article look superficially improved to an uninformed or indifferent judge by making it more verbose or obfuscating it to make it look more comprehensive. Bensaccount (talk) 03:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Is that the entire objection--that they "may" know or care little about those articles? Rhetorical question 1: Who selected the initial list of articles? Question 2: Why do you care if they care? The articles will still be improved, and the changes, if unwanted, can be reverted at any time. Question 3: How does the judging of improvements of Wikipedia articles by a self-selected few harm Wikipedia? Please answer this question in the context of the understanding of Wikipedia's resilience.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 03:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, the motives of the editors will change. They will try to make articles look more improved to an uninformed or indifferent judge so that they can get paid, instead of trying to improve them because they care. Bensaccount (talk) 03:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Danny is an historian who has edited paper encyclopedias professionally. Walkerma is a professional scientiest. Alison is a computer scientist with good working knowledge of several other subjects. To be honest, these three are more qualified to assess an article's quality than the average talk page goer. – Steel 03:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Again, why do you care? After the contest is over, you, I or any editor can fix up these articles--even if we have to revert to two-month-old versions first. And the majority of editors, the conscientious ones, will truly improve the articles because they care about Wikipedia as well as the money. And the majority of editors, the smart ones, will make their improvements real because they fear that dutiful judges will check every claim and every reference. There is simply no way that the majority of edited articles will not be improved by this project--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 03:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Okay, I just started thinking about this in a more deep way, and although I intend to stay in the contest, I'm beginning to see something of what you're saying.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 03:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't like the assumption that wiki-editors are going to try to swindle the system, or that the judges will be a bunch of bumbling idiots in the face of what will be the largest mass-swindle in the history of wikipedia. Give people some credit! Assume good faith. The judges aren't stupid, they'll be able to see what's going on, and most editors will probably genuinely try to make a good article. That's at least what I'm doing. Wrad (talk) 03:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Appeal to authority instead of community consensus goes against one of the principles that makes Wikipedia great. This contest sets a precedent and I think at very least a word of caution is in order on the project page. Bensaccount (talk) 04:00, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Wikipedia appeals to consensus and authority, in other words, agreement as it coincides with reason. That's why we don't do votes, but also look to policy and rely on discussion to argue through things reasonably. The masses aren't always right. The judges aren't idiots, they will be able to see a loser article. When I apply an article for GA, there is only one judge who says whether or not it is good. I could swindle him if I wanted, but I don't. When apply for FA, there are in reality only a few editors judging the article, and yet the system somehow works. Why? I don't know, but it does. It churns out the best articles to be found in wikipedia. Wrad (talk) 04:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Bensaccount, what is that precedent?--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 04:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No, as far as I know until now Phds have had as much power to influence edits as elementary school children. This contest changes that. Bensaccount (talk) 04:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
How do you know the judges don't come from both arenas? You don't, and that's the nature of the encyclopedia. See also my comment later on... Wrad (talk) 04:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I can hardly believe what I'm reading. What the heck is wrong with people with more experience having more authority?--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 04:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Nothing, as long as their edits are good. Look, if Danny was paying money to people to insert POV into articles, I might be upset, but he's not, he's paying for improvement of sickeningly pathetic articles. He's not out to subvert anything. This really isn't much different from a GA or FA judgement call, and anyone worth their barnstar can make such judgements. This isn't rocket science. Wrad (talk) 04:23, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

That has got to be the stupidest comment I have read yet. Taken to its logical conclusion, we can start citing our articles, with Little Johnny, What I Did on My Summer Vacation, Mr. Roger's Class, Grade Four, 2007. Danny (talk) 04:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Dang. This page has generated some of the most interesting arguments I've seen on wikipedia. It's true that wikipedia judges by edits, not credentials, but I don't see how that applies here. A six year old could win this contest if their edits were good. Wrad (talk) 04:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Danny wants less people to have more authority. He doesn't care if little Johnny knows more about summer camp than he does. He wants people to appeal to degrees instead of reasoning. If someone with a degree says Johnny's insights are worthless than that person should be able to influence people edits regardless of what discussion goes on in the talk page. Bensaccount (talk) 04:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Not true. Again, a six year old could win this if her edits were good, and for all you know I'm no older she would be. Wrad (talk) 04:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
But if she knew Danny to be biased against certain references or ideas than to win it she might have to alter her writing a bit. And don't say Danny is completely neutral. Give NPOV a good read first. Bensaccount (talk) 04:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
(e/c)In response to what this whole thread was started over: "Normally, improvements are judged based on consensus from everyone interested in watching a certain page. This contest is detrimental to Wikipedia because it encourages improvements to be judged by three people who may know nothing about the topic." - If that is true, then WP:FAC, WP:PR, WP:RFC, and WP:GAC are also bad for the project for encouraging people who may have had no prior interaction with the article to make comments and judge it. Mr.Z-man 04:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes, small groups judging articles is already very common on wikipedia and acknowledged as necessary. That has precedent. Wrad (talk) 04:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Theres a difference between encouraging more people to have input and giving less people more influence. Giving people a featured article does not change their motives the same way as paying them does. Bensaccount (talk) 04:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
How do you know all this? Have you ever written one? No one in their right mind would put the hundreds of hours it takes to make an FA solely for the chance of making a hundred bucks. It's not economical. Wrad (talk) 05:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Authority, Influence and Money on Wikipedia

Bensaccount, how much influence do you think the judges have over Wikipedia in general? What fraction of editors are in the contest? What fraction of articles are in the contest? I don't think that the influence of the judges is of any significance for all of Wikipedia. And the judges are most definitely not in authority over Wikipedia. The judges are the judges of their contest--that's all. If you object to their "influence" or "authority"--don't join.--Mumia-w-18 (talk) 04:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Right now it might have little effect, but raise the stakes or keep doing it and it will significantly change the motivation for many editors. I don't oppose editors being paid but the judgement would have to work the same way it does now. Editors of each article should reach a consensus on the talk page about which improvements are good and which are not good. I am even ok with Danny listing articles he wants improved based on his own personal preference. Just so long as he or some select few are not the ones who judge the improvements. Bensaccount (talk) 05:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Still, though, how is what he's doing any different from GAC or FAC? Small groups judging something. How do you know that talk isn't already going on on said talk pages? How is anything really subverted here? At first you seemed to be saying that money was the issue, but now you're okay with that, as long as there's some sort of consensus, but I don't see how that's any different from what's already happening. No matter what, it will always be the few judging the many. Perhaps what you are wanting is a separation of money from judging. For example: Danny cannot judge which articles are best, but chooses others whom he trusts to judge for him. Obviously, if the judges are totally off, he can choose not to pay, but generally, in such a situation, he would probably side with them anyway. Good articles are what they are, after all. I honestly don't know what I think of this idea, but here it is anyway. Wrad (talk) 05:16, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
The contest looks to pick the best improvements made to the articles, which by studying the article history and comparing the version before the entrant's edits and their most recent edit - shouldn't be that difficult to judge. There will be people who radically overhaul an article, but don't add much extra content - and that will be judged against entries where the article has been significantly expanded content wise. Discussing entries on talk pages would be unnecessary, and make it far more complex to establish a winner than need be. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 10:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Some comments

At first I hesitated to respond to these posts, because I really have better ways to spend my time. On the other hand, the misconceptions and misrepresentations are such that I will respond, if only to clarify certain key facts. In response to Chris Stanfield, Wikipedia is a project devoted to creating and promoting free content. "Free as in Freedom," as both Jimbo and Richard Stallman often say, adding, "not Free as in Beer." In other words, free without restriction of any kind. In other words, including free for commercial reuse. In fact, when I was involved with OTRS, the permissions queue regularly rejected permissions involving with a no commercial reuse clause, and I have no reason to believe that this has changed. I believe that this is integral to the project, and that people who do not accept this principle should reconsider their participation.

I also believe that the current Board agrees with this position. In fact, Brion regularly makes a content dump available, and anyone is free to take it, in whole or in part, and do what they like with it. The fact is that people do just that. Take a look on Google sometime, and you will be shocked at the number of websites that copy Wikipedia verbatim and stick ads all over it, with or without Foundation approval, and with or without complying with the terms of the GFDL. Wikipedia is, undoubtedly, a web presence, and based on your reasoning, these sites are abusing your free work by making money off of it. Yet it is allowed, regardless of how you may wax indignant.

Veropedia could have done just that. We could have just copied Wikipedia verbatim, slapped ads on it, and made enough money to pay my rent. On the other hand, we believed, like you, that this is not in the spirit of the project, so we decided to do things a bit differently.

When I left my job at the Foundation in March, I asked myself how I could improve on the problems I saw in the Wikipedia model. The purpose was not to compete with Wikipedia, but rather to improve upon the model, this time as an outsider, with the freedom to experiment and do things the way I saw best. Rather than compete with Wikipedia, I wanted to improve it, and I found a large number of like-minded people who were willing to help me with this.

We are in the process of doing just that. We are building a reliable, stable version of the best Wikipedia articles, with an emphasis on content geared for students. Yes, Wikipedia is also in the process of developing stable versions, and has been for a year and a half. I think you will find that our model is different, and offers certain features that Wikipedia's will not. And we were able to do it in just a few months, without any cost to the Foundation.

As part of this model we determined that there can be no improvement to content without sharing it with Wikipedia. That is why all our work on improving content takes place on Wikipedia itself, and only then do we import an acceptable version to our website. In essence, our goal is to ensure that good versions of articles appear on Wikipedia at least for one second, so that we can save it as a stable version and have it vetted and approved by academics. Furthermore, to show our gratitude, we have decided to place prominently on every page of our website a link to the WMF's fundraising efforts, both during the fundraiser and after. In our view, we are not competing with Wikipedia—in fact, it would be futile to even try. Rather, we are attempting to highlight the best of Wikipedia, independently but in a spirit of cooperation.

Outiggr complains about the corporate nature of Veropedia. In fact, I challenge him to conjure up the image of how this corporation is really run, with me sitting in my boxers in my bedroom, opposite my monitor 18 hours a day. Not a pretty picture. So why do we have advertising? Because running a website costs money, as a look at the WMF budget will show. We have two options: compete with Wikipedia for donors, or perhaps, to raise our own money, and maybe even give back to Wikipedia one day, not only in content but in cash donations. I reject the notion that links to books, some of which are actually cited in the articles themselves, poses a challenge to our neutrality. That is pure hyperbole.

As for Wikipedia not accepting advertising, I will make my most controversial statement here, and state emphatically that this is a myth. The amount of SEO spam and other types of free advertising on Wikipedia is overwhelming. Just ask the people who run spambot. Perhaps it would be more correct to say that while Wikipedia does not accept advertising, they are subject to it in more ways than you can imagine.

Are people promoting our site? Yes, about two dozen Wikipedians at most, myself included, have user boxes stating that we support Veropedia—considerably less than those with boxes stating that they user Apple, or Google Earth, or (gasp!) Windows (about 350 people). Did someone write an essay about us? Yes, and it is a good essay. After all, it is a call to people to focus on quality content, and to provide them with a way to save their content from vandalism and ignorance.

And we are sponsoring a contest. If you check WP:DC you will see that I personally have sponsored three contests in the past, which each led to several featured articles. Rather than claiming originality, I took the idea for a contest from the German Wikipedia some four years ago. Looking at the Entries page, I am delighted by the results, and by the idea that such important articles are getting a proper work-over. Without biasing any entry, the statement from earlier today, "I'm working on Reproductive system which was a one paragraph stub, it is a work in progress," says it all. The contest is succeeding in its primary goal of improving Wikipedia content. And to Matt Lewis I say with utter confidence that this article is far more likely to be deemed core than any of the biographical articles listed here or here. If that reflects bias, so be it.

Yes, I am disappointed with the responses to the contest on this page. On the other hand, this is more than balanced by my excitement at seeing the number of articles that this contest has provided the incentive to improve. I hope to be able to sponsor many similar contests in the future. Danny (talk) 02:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yep, at the end of these two weeks, the contest will have piles of improved articles to show as evidence of the good it did. I doubt that the opposing viewpoint will have any such evidence. If they do, though, I would be the first to oppose such contests in the future. Wrad (talk) 03:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
A number of issues are being conflated.
  • This is not an issue of how GFDL content is used; every site that "cop[ies] Wikipedia verbatim and stick ads all over it" is, within the parameters of GFDL, free to do so. None of those mirrors receive the benefit of "informal", "Hi-I'm-a-Veropedia-user" links within Wikipedia—what I am calling the "Wikipedia halo" that would appear to be spreading to Veropedia (these debates notwithstanding).
  • There may be 500 user boxes on user pages that say "I Like Coke". I'm not going to debate whether that is advertising, but there is no reason to assume that the people who placed those user boxes are affiliated with Coca-Cola Ltd. The userboxes for Veropedia are placed by users affiliated with the organization, an organization described as for-profit, and an organization whose actions on Wikipedia show it to not be at "arm's length" from Wikipedia.
  • What do I suggest is appropriate? 1) That the owner of the company be able to link to anything he wants on his user page. 2) That any further linking—from signatures, from people sympathetic to the project, from contests that originally mentioned the website, and received headline space on watchlist pages—be disallowed on the grounds that the linking appears to put Wikipedia in a conflict of interest, or makes it appear that Wikipedia is affiliated with this organization (an assumption easily made, as seen on this talk page). 3) That the Wikipedia article on the company stand on its own merits.
  • "Why is this a big deal?" I'm not claiming that anyone is getting rich from this, but I fail to understand how so few people can understand the precedent this sets for Wikipedia, and the principles involved. In life, we sometimes make important decisions based on principles, even when we'd pragmatically like to do otherwise.
I have said what I needed to say about this, in this forum. Thanks, –Outriggr § 04:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This project page deals with the contest. If you have objections to the contest itself I would encourage you to post them on the project page. Bensaccount (talk) 04:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I guess I still don't get it. What precedent does this set that is so bad? Wrad (talk) 05:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This ain't a U.S. Supreme Court case, people. The only outcome or precedent or what-have-you here is better articles, and that's what we're here to do. --Hemlock Martinis (talk) 06:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Do you realize there is nothing to stop anyone from running a similar prize contest to improve wikipedia articles on their own private blog at any time. That wouldn't subvert wikipedia either, and there's nothing you could do to stop that. Improvements will still be kept, and non-improvements will still be dropped. There is no precedent why this kind of thing can't be done on-site, either. It's good to think of hard working and skilled editors finally maybe getting some small reward, in my opinion. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 12:35, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Since I've been specifically "called out" (which I didn't even realize until a friend told me- you've been on WP long enough to know how to do an inline response, so I'm not sure why you didn't (by the way, it's "Stansfield"- Two "s"es)), I feel the need to respond to what is apparently an attempt to take my objections to the GFDL and run with them without at all addressing the main point of my comment. Yes, I think the GFDL isn't the best license for this sort of material, whether Jimbo or anyone else agrees with me, as I've made clear- but I accept that that is the nature of the beast and I participate anyway. I know that the info here can be used for profit, whether I like it or not. And while I noted that point, it wasn't "THE point" per se. THE point was one of honesty and full-disclosure. "Sunshine". I pointed out that this is a contest sponsored by a for-profit entity. I pointed out that the "improvement" of articles that said entity specifically would like to include on its site will financially benefit that entity. I believe- GFDL or not, Jimbo's intentions or not- that it is disingenuous, to say the least, that on the project page for this contest no actual mention of the sponsoring entity is made. That this clear financial relationship is not laid out.
In theory, I'm not opposed to contests. I'm not even oppposed to financial incentives as some people here are. Hell, I may even participate in the contest if I have the time. Make all the profit you want. Sponsor all the contests you want. But disguising your motivations is absolutely dishonest, and if it were done in any other kind of media, it would receive the same criticism laid out here. Political advertisements now must disclose who is paying for them (so that we might determine the potential motives and biases behind them). Corporate sponsored contests that seek to profit from creators' work must fully disclose it (there have been contests in the past, for example, asking users to submit their own video commercials, toy designs, names, etc- and for damn sure every one of them outlines in full what's going to happen with those creations once the "winner" has been selected). All I am asking for at the moment is a similar level of honesty and care from Veropedia.
And yes, at the risk of giving you another red cape to focus on while ignoring my point, I would like to see Wikipedia itself rise to that level of honesty and make it far clearer to the new contributors it receives every day that their work can be used by others who wish to make a profit with no compensation to them. But for now, that's another issue. ChrisStansfield Contribs 18:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Pragmatism

Wow. I've just read this whole page. I would like to point out one thing that I did not see come up very often - poverty. Some people, like myself, are dedicated to improving wikipedia but also poor. I'll be honest - one of the reasons I am entering this contest is because I need the money. I suppose for most editors here $100 is peanuts, but it is not for me. Perhaps it is unethical to write articles on dead authors for money, but I don't feel the pangs of my conscience yet. Jane Austen isn't paying me to promote her and I would like to have money to pay for my health insurance deductible. Has everyone here asked themselves this question: in what situation would you agree to accept money for writing an article? I doubt that there is a truly a "never" answer. Few people are true Kantians. Philosophical debate can now ensue. :) Awadewit | talk 13:02, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'm right there with you, Awadewit. Maybe I've already been corrupted, but if Emily Dickinson can inadvertently pay for my books next semester, I'll gladly accept! Nothing says "incentive" like being a frazzled Graduate Student.  ;) María (habla conmigo) 13:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
If I can stop one article from breaking
I shall not live in vain.
  • I tried. :) Awadewit | talk 13:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I would accept money only when we can judge improvement on individual discussion pages, as it has always been done. Centralizing Wikipedia and changing it so that less people hold more power and influence will destroy Wikipedia. When you get enough people editing to please a few uninformed, indifferent judges than those who were editing because they care will give up and all edits will become superficial, uninformed, and indifferent.
That's a gross generalization. I don't think anyone here is seriously only interested in the money; it's only a fortunate circumstance that anyone in their right mind would accept if offered. I don't think you could call the working draft of Jane Austen's article, for example, either superficial, uninformed, or indifferent. I mean, come on. Have faith in people. María (habla conmigo) 14:26, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes, there is no way to stop these contests, but as Wikipedians we should not endorse them and should do everything in our power to make the negative effects apparent. There needs to be some kind of rule that states: When someone who is editing for money comes into a conflict with someone who is editing because they care, the latter editor's edits and opinions take precedence. Bensaccount (talk) 14:06, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

An edit based on money is automatically less important than an edit based made by someone who cared? That's an illogical assertion. The quality of a person's edit is never a function of the editor's financial motivations. --seav (talk) 15:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
"Make the negative effects apparent," "as Wikipedians we should not endorse them" - That's poisoning the well and bandwagon fallacy right there and you can't blast a practice because it involves a monetary prize, of all things, simply because it exists. How does the edits of one working to seek the favor of a judge in a contest differ from a regular editor, much less a vandal?--WaltCip (talk) 14:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Edits made for money and judged by a select few need to be seen as lower quality and less valuable because they undoubtedly will be. Flawed motives will lead to flawed results. Danny is biased, like it or not, and those edits made to please him will be biased. When corporations get in on this it will be even more so. Bensaccount (talk) 14:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Okay, then. What, in your own words, do you believe the purpose of this contest is, if any?--WaltCip (talk) 14:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Danny wants less people to have more authority. He doesn't care if little Johnny knows more about summer camp than he does. He wants people to appeal to degrees instead of reasoning. If someone with a degree says Johnny's insights are worthless than that person should be able to influence people edits regardless of what discussion goes on in the talk page. Bensaccount (talk) 14:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

From what I can tell, the edits in this contest are of higher quality, not lower. People are getting off their butts to do lots of research that noone could be arsed to do for free. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
  • [edit conflict] I take offense at that comment, frankly. You can edit for money and care. There is nothing necessarily mutually exclusive there. Obviously, it is a problem when a corporation is paying someone to improve their article, but neither I nor Yllosubmarine are doing anything remotely close to that. I would also like to point out that you can't actually know if someone is editing for money. I assume that there are many editors on wikipedia that actually are paid by corporations to burnish their image. However, they look just like everyone else. :)
  • When the Jane Austen article is posted, I will alert you and you can read it. It will be a high quality article, based on the best scholarship. The current article, written (we presume) by editors who did care (as you say) is disgraceful. (By the way, since I was working on a draft of the Austen article months before the contest was announced, does that mean I care or not? I don't think these categories are very useful.)
  • I would also like to point out that all of the editors on wikipedia are "uninformed" and "biased" - they are all people. It is also a community of amateurs - it does not claim to have expert editors. I don't see these judges (and there are three) as any different from those on FAC or GAC. I also don't understand why you don't think the articles won't be judged by the whole community - they will still be edited.
  • I would also like to point out that you didn't address the points I raised in my original post. Awadewit | talk 14:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Great edits are made all the time. It is not the quality of individual edits that makes Wikipedia better than other encyclopedias. It is the collaboration among people who care. When the judgement of these people gets less influence than the judgement of a few indifferent individuals, you will lose the input of the masses, and that loss does not equal the gains that come from a few biased edits made under ulterior motives. Bensaccount (talk) 14:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
But it is the will of the individual person that inspires and, in effect, creates a change in the encyclopedia, for better or worse. You can have groups of people with ulterior motives as well - see Wikipedia:Esperanza. I'm really getting the impression by your comments that you believe groupthink is the only way to maintain an encyclopedia such as this.--WaltCip (talk) 15:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
In practice, many (most?) of the best articles are essentially written by a single editor anyhow. WilyD 15:11, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Not only that, but Free Enterprise is the default principal that the globe spins on, except only where limited by some controlling politburo or state. Only an objection from the controlling foundation here could get it off the project space, and it would still probably continue off-site with fewer safeguards. There has been no compelling reason for them to do so, people make higher than average quality edits when there is incentive, not lower quality as Bensaccount asserts. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No articles are not written by single editors, and if McDonalds sponsors and judges your edits they will be of lower quality. Bensaccount (talk) 15:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Wow I have not taken part in policy discussion in a while but the quality of discourse here has gone way downhill. Bensaccount (talk) 15:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Was that an insult?--WaltCip (talk) 15:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Luckily the wiki system somehow seem to favor something like "survival of the fittest" edits in the long run. I don't think even McDonald's sponsoring edits could put a dent in that. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Only because all users are given equal influence. Change that and you will start getting edits which survive for other reasons. Bensaccount (talk) 15:32, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
How? Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Eventually those people who are motivated by sponsorship will outnumber those who actually care about some topic. Discourse on the page will be about how to please the McDonalds judges instead of how to improve the article. Bensaccount (talk) 15:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
And if the McDonalds-sponsored edits are crap, anyone at all can change them for free, no matter how much they cost. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Are we going to just keep spinning like this?
Are we going to just keep spinning like this?
--WaltCip (talk) 15:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This was probably said before, but the quality of the edit depends on the editor, not the sponsor. If McDonalds sponsors editors to improve articles relating to World War I, how is that going to have a negative impact on the encyclopedia? Would people be putting a pro-McDonald's slant into articles like Central Powers? Mr.Z-man 15:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, McDonalds could pay for biased edits to H.R. Pufnstuf, to take a more relevant example. But then anyone could change them back and it would be McDonald's loss. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 15:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
True, I just think that as a community we should frown upon the practice. I am not suggesting banning it. Just making the negative effects known. Bensaccount (talk) 15:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Make a semi-plausible case that any exist and we can discuss it. For example, you could show how I made this article worse in preparing to upload it to Veropedia. Or pick another. Conduct an empirical test of the articles in the contest, and see how their quality changes. WilyD 16:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I have no interest in putting that kind of work in, and I doubt other editors do either. Your work may not be biased but your motivations may not be for money. It is still a relatively small amount. Wait until the amount increases and the judges become corporate executives. Bensaccount (talk) 16:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
If there's no reason to believe that any problems have occured or will occur, a warning about them seems kind of silly. WilyD 16:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Edits made for money and judged by a select few need to be seen as lower quality and less valuable because they undoubtedly will be. Flawed motives will lead to flawed results. This is my opinion based on my own experiences. I can try to convince others but if they will not hear me than so be it. Bensaccount (talk) 16:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You're doing a slippery slope argument, which, by itself, is not a very good argument. --seav (talk) 17:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Aside from that, claiming the contest edits "need to be seen as lower quality, because they undoubtedly will be" is a circular reasoning fallacy. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 17:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Aaaand, there still is no proof that "they undoubtedly will be". From what I've seen, the edits being made are of higher quality. --Ali'i 17:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
As a disciple of Hume and Galileo, I hereby declare my doubt that they will be. My own anecodtes indicate the opposite, but we're all smart enough to know the plural of 'anecdote' isn't 'data'. So let's see some data before we draw any conclusions. WilyD 17:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Let me restate this. When I said without doubt I meant without doubt from me. Edits made for money and judged by a select few need to be seen as lower quality and less valuable because flawed motives will lead to flawed results. This is my opinion. Note that before one can say these "higher quality" edits refute my claim you will have to prove that these edits were motivated by the money rather than care. Bensaccount (talk) 17:48, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You want to include a disclaimer that says: In the opinion of User:Bensaccount of Wikipedia, edits made for money and judged by a select few need to be seen as lower quality and less valuable because flawed motives will lead to flawed results. ? WilyD 17:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes. And perhaps some other users who agree with me can be included also. I think Kingturtle might be one. Bensaccount (talk) 17:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
OIC. Presumably, every other Wikipedian with an opinion on The Core Contest would also be entitled to advertise their opinions on the same page, whether they believe The Core Contest will cause The Rapture, cure cancer, prove Fermat's last theorem in the margins of a notebook or cause the extinction of Passenger Pigeons retroactively as well. Perhaps such a long list of opinions should have its own subpage? WilyD 18:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't think such opinions exist. Bensaccount (talk) 18:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Presumably other opinions exist, and would be includable as well. I was just picking some examples. WilyD 18:19, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I think there is only one main opposing viewpoint which I represent. Bensaccount (talk) 18:22, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
So we should present all viewpoints, except ones in support, and your opinion is the only opposing one? Mr.Z-man 18:28, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


I was under the impression you were opposed to having a single Wikipedian or a small group of Wikipedians judge the worthiness of anything. Was I mistaken? WilyD 18:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
More like I am opposed to having a single person given undue influence over articles he is indifferent about. But not even opposed, just in favour of regarding edits made to please such a person as lower in value. Bensaccount (talk) 18:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Then why do you advocate you being given complete control over disclaimers about and opinions about The Core Contest? Doesn't that seem hypocritical? WilyD 18:33, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Am I making my disclaimer to please an uninformed or indifferent judge? Will I receive money for it? Bensaccount (talk) 18:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You on the other hand...are you in the contest? Bensaccount (talk) 18:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)


DE-DENT Obviously I cannot know the answer to either of those questions. However, this is besides the point. How can you simultaneously advocate you being made the sole uninformed judge of this contest when you're opposed to multiple but few judges judging articles? And no, I'm not editing any articles elidgible for this contest, as you can see by my contribution history, I'm working on Richmond Hill, Ontario and related subjects these days, none of which are "core". WilyD 18:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't want to judge the contest. Bensaccount (talk) 18:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Err, perhaps I have failed at grammer. Here I mean "judge the contest", not "judge the contest entries". WilyD 18:57, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This is really silly. I've never seen such a lack of good faith assumptions. Your arguments have no basis in fact, reason, or evidence. You'd rather spend your time pointing fingers than looking for actual evidence. I think we have discussed things with you enough. I just want to ask a rhetorical question to everyone involved in this discussion: Why bother talking to this guy anymore? Wrad (talk) 18:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Section break for irony

Funny it's Bensaccount that doesn't like the idea of editing for money. :-) Just kidding. Sorta. --Ali'i 18:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I didn't say that. Money is fine, its the judgement of only a few uninformed or indifferent people that I am opposed to. Bensaccount (talk) 18:34, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You would be more content then, say, if the High Priest of Wikipedia were a judge?--WaltCip (talk) 18:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No I would only be content if the judging occurs the same way it does now. Improvements are determined by community consensus on each articles individual discussion page. Bensaccount (talk) 18:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This contest doesn't prevent that. Its not like the "winning" articles are going to have a template put on them that says "This version of this article was deemed excellent by Danny" - Anyone will still be able to edit and discuss it. Mr.Z-man 18:49, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That's not the way the Arbitration Committee works. They have a panel of five distinguished members. Should we throw that out the window too?--WaltCip (talk) 18:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yes please do. I have never really seen any benefit come of that. But thats another story. Bensaccount (talk) 18:53, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Aye, and I would go over to the Village Pump for that, so you can get a consensus on whether the Arbcom is necessary for Wikipedia's interests.--WaltCip (talk) 18:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I still don't follow how the contest organizers are thereby acquiring any "influence" over the final state of any articles. All they have to decide, is what to do with their own money, and whom they will give it to. It's a totally separate issue that may be confusing you. They are not going to stop any articles from continuing to impove in the long run, so it's not at all detrimental. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Here is what I am saying: In the opinion of User:Bensaccount of Wikipedia, edits made for money and judged by a select few need to be seen as lower quality and less valuable because flawed motives will lead to flawed results. Take it or leave it. Bensaccount (talk) 18:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

You've already said that a lot of times. Many people have read it. What are you still arguing then? WilyD 18:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Hmmm, well, I might even agree withthat opinion if instead of the forceful "need to be seen", you changed that part to "ought to be suspect" or "deserve extra scrutiny" or the like... Not all such edits are necessarily lower qualityTil Eulenspiegel (talk) 18:52, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Yes I would also consider that an improvement. Thank you. In the opinion of User:Bensaccount of Wikipedia, edits made for money and judged by a select few ought to be suspect as lower quality and less valuable because flawed motives will likely lead to flawed results.Bensaccount (talk) 18:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I'd be fine with that.--WaltCip (talk) 18:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok, how about this more specific version:

In the opinion of User:Bensaccount of Wikipedia, edits motivated by the money and judgment of a select few ought to be suspect as lower quality and less valuable than edits motivated by the more traditional reasons for editing Wikipedia because flawed motives --such as submission to judgment of individuals who are not actively engaged in the creation, editing, or discussion of the articles--will likely lead to flawed results. Bensaccount (talk) 20:43, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Alternately, the edits are possibly better because, as everyone is so eager to point out, the company behind the contest stands to make money off of quality content, so they would want to ensure that the results are of the highest quality ... and not from an indifferent, uninformed, or biased editor ... Just a thought ... Danny (talk) 21:12, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Just because your company makes money does not guarantee quality information. For example, if you wanted to sell a lot of toilet brushes you might significantly bias articles towards toilet-brush related content. Bensaccount (talk) 21:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Add to "see also" request?

I see the project page was locked after the edit warring. It occured to me that Wikipedia:Reward board, Wikipedia:Bounty board might be added to the "See also" section since, they have come up on this talk page several times as longstanding precedents for monetary incentives. Til Eulenspiegel (talk) 14:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Will Veropedia end up controlling Wikipedia if this carries on?

I have been advised to make my points in less than 200 words! I can see that there is so much writing to be done on Wikipedia, that few people have the time to waste reading. I did try a ‘These days, I just wash and go’ version, but it’s just too important to me to cut short. It maybe my last edit!

PULL THE WOOL

The compiler of this competition, Danny Wool, a Wikipedia Administrator (and once Foundation member), owns and runs a private for-profit Florida-based company called Veropedia inc. Veropedia acts as a showcase for the best Wikipedia articles (taken under GNU Free Documentation Licence we all signed up to). They basically vet and seal our best articles. As an Administrator, Danny is using the Wikipedia Announcement section of member’s watchlists to advertise this privately funded competition. Danny is clearly interested purely in a range of marketable popular topics (he's out for the ones that are not quite up to scratch), and not at all interested in the backlog of poorly graded articles or stubs. In his communications to us, he assumes the moral highground, and promotes himself as a benefactor of Wikipedia. In reality he is bribing us to hone his chosen articles. When they are good enough they will profit him. He may not quite become Bill Gates, but he will be significantly advanced in many ways.

HOW IT WORKS

In Veropedia, our Wikipedia articles are vetted and occasionally adapted by ‘experts and academics’ and then frozen in time. They are currently taking articles that are grade B grade or better (I noticed Blood has been ‘uploaded’), and are tidying them up for embalming. Gee, and I thought the article improvement was our job Danny! We are not told who the vetting ‘experts’ are (I’m not sure they actually employ any yet), but that crucial word ‘independent’ tellingly doesn’t feature. Obviously, essential amendments and updates must sometimes be made – but we don’t get to see by whom, and it’s up to Veropedia if and when it happens.

So is Veropedia currently neutral in its verifying? No. The Veropedia article on Jerusalem (included -and vetted?- by Danny himself) is inherently contentious and extremely biased in tone (as was, admittedly, the Wikipedia article it is based on). Serious unbiased academics could not have passed it, which for Wikipedia alone was not such a problem. But the article is now sealed in time with Veropedia’s stamp of ‘truth’, when even International Law actually contravenes it (yes, it’s an awkward topic), and the current ‘living’ Wikipedia version gets changed every day! So who are the specialists currently approving this stuff? We simply are not told.

Wikipedia gets criticised, but there is one thing about it that no-one can knock – it might be full of imperfections, but at least it’s a living, breathing mass – able to be changed and improved at all times. Each one of Veropedia’s surgically improved doppelgangers is comparatively a dressed-up corpse. For every living subject, Veropedia represents intellectual death.

A VITAL CORE?

In his introduction for this competition, Danny exclaims that we all acknowledge ‘the vital importance of core topics’. But do we really? What actually is so vital about a core topic? Core articles are already of a certain passable standard, and bad edits often get dealt with immediately. Wikipedia’s real critical issue is the backlog of poorly or non-graded articles that contain damaging information for long periods of time. Danny is also a working Wikipedia editor, and has many totally uncited articles of his own that have been left unchanged for years! The information in most of the ‘core’ articles is usually pretty easy to find – it is the non-core articles that are the lifeblood of Wikipedia!

Who of us actually joined Wikipedia to edit core topics? It was surely the eclectic stuff that drew most of us in;

Comic book writers, the Iraqi presidents, local politicians, collectable cards, infamous battles, Iranian cinema, Bulgarian folk bands, brewery specials, character actors, breeds of dogs, corporation details, food additives, opera divas, sporting heroes, online gaming, cult film classics, technical jargon, various physical complaints…

These are why Wikipedia matter, and all the external links within them are what really make them vital! Is the fact that there are 2 million of them, and that most are un-graded, really so shamefully embarrassing, as competition runners would have us believe? Don’t let any cooing young profiteers tell you what they want are the important things in Wikipedia! And don’t let anyone make you feel guilty for reading and editing whatever you like!

THE BIG LIE

And what about the ‘vital’ articles in this competition that do not even appear to be ‘core’?

reflex test, syntax, tuba, Utah, inclined plane, Howard Hughes, Night Watch, San Jose, Dennis Ritchie, colon, hafnium, hypoxia, rhythm, boat, bruise, BSD, Clint Eastwood, Aaron Sorkin!

Expanding a core list along these lines will make it run into hundred of thousands, if not into millions! It’s a big wide world we live in after all. The simple fact is that Veropedia wants varied content on their site – which is a different thing altogether to the ‘core topics’ that they claim we need. Core is their Big Lie – varied content is the real truth here – not ‘core’, ‘key’, vital’, ‘crucial’ or ‘most important’ - the adjectives they use to describe the list! And clearly, bias (premeditated or not) courses through on every level. If pupils take up the site they’ll make a fortune on advertising – and who will have done all the work? For the odd sniff of cash in a lotto! Or are we all dreaming of muskier things?

TELLING OMISSIONS

Where is Pavarotti? Why Rock, but no Rap? Where are the women? Benazir Bhutto, maybe? Where are black people? Malcolm X, perhaps? Why is it so American throughout? Where is William Wordsworth? Is Walt Whitman a better poet because he’s American? Why the word ‘Girl’ but no Anne Frank? I could go on and on. I’ve checked Veropedia for these examples and they don’t have them already – these oversights are because the list is simply just an arbitrary net to expand a business – it’s just a mixed catch, and not the genuine core list that Veropedia pretends it is.

AN AMERICAN EDUCATION

The 20C giant Pavarotti (who died in September) was important to a billion people – but clearly not quite as important in Danny’s mind. Maybe Pavarotti was just not quite American enough? An awful lot of France is missing – Woody Allen but no Jean Renoir! Allen himself would balk. Where are Montaigne and Descartes? Foucault? If English is so important, where is Chaucer - the ‘father of English literature’ (to many the father of the language itself)? It is no surprise we have Virgil, of course. Remember that history and culture did not begin in the USA -although it clearly is standardised by the US education system! I’ve noticed John Wayne – but where is Kurosawa?

TRUST

Veropedia is hardly an encyclopaedia of the world. We must ask ourselves - can we trust these people to judge, revise and archive our articles? Try the bosses name in a search engine and judge for yourself. Many of the names defending the list on this page are Veropedia editors and administrators who were hand-picked by him. Moreschi, Eliminator JR, Sagaciousuk, the page-protecting ‘Super-editor’ John Reaves, who has 200 different man/woman/ethnic personas, which are ‘fleshed-out’ when it’s suited – look at his ‘creation logs’ - especially Q-Funk, Bilal.shahid and Miraluka (who edits with a ‘brother’!) – he even uploads people’s faces to give them more life! That kind of multiple-roll play-acting day after day (however productive and well-intended) must surely go to the editor’s head. Clearly Reaves is now a joint Wikipedia/Veropedia man! Is he riding a tandem through the loophole to money and power? Click on the ‘user verofies Veropedia’ logo on one the above editor’s user page for a list of 26 people who currently verify it. Any multiple names they might use can be found in their Creation Logs. Pillars of virtue? Well, they’re certainly Wikipedia people. But In ethical terms, Veropedia a big step up from Wikipedia - and it’s all entirely in their hands…

ENTANGLED WITH POLITICS

At least two inclusions on this list are very political. One is ‘Communism in North Korea’ which is Veropedia’s suggestion for an article (it is coloured red) - and not, as I write, an existing article. Should Veropedia be creating a ‘core’ from scratch here? I’m no fan of North Korea, but my obvious worry is an anti-communism bias on Veropedia’s part. I know Danny is rather right wing from reading about the articles he has censored in his high-flying past. I’m no fan of extremism, but censorship is not what I signed up to Wikipedia for – how about you?

The other is the inclusion of ‘Palestinian Territories’ without including ‘Palestine’ (it will be offensive to over a billion people to choose one and not the other). Zionism (the foundations of modern Israel) is a very contentious exclusion from the list – balanced people would expect to see it. Exclusion is a form of bias too. Sensitivity is needed, but is clearly not present. ‘What do I care?’ is the wrong way to go.

Veropedia has already vetted and sealed two problematic and highly controversial articles Israel and Jerusalem. How can internationally controversial articles like these be sealed in time? I cannot agree with it. If Wikipedia was problematic with the power it hands out, Veropedia is a nightmare with the power it takes back. The targeted Amazon advertising neatly adjoining the Jerusalem article contains the usual anti-Islamic hate that has been churned out over the years. Freedom of speech maybe, but is this really where we want our labours of love to end up? In a place that validates offence?

THE FUTURE OF WIKIPEDIA

Wikipedia makes claims of neutrality, but is tumbling into disorganised anarchy. It has no real constitution with which to defend itself, and market forces will inevitably take control. They will suck it dry of credibility, and leave it an undesirable husk.

Too many editors have no concept or care of the principles required to make Wikipedia the ‘moral fortress’ it must become to survive. If the lowest common denominator wins out on Wikipedia, the world will face a clear vision of information ruin. It will be a tipping point. Wikipedia’s half-baked name will soon crumble, and a more credible alternative will swiftly take up the mantle. The social need (discovered with Wikipedia) for an online encyclopaedia, will be met by basic social forces - as people will simply vote with their feet. The best editors will jump ship, and Wikipedia (big as though it is) will slowly start to sink.

Is that as laughable as many will claim?

I was depressed about Wikipedia for a long time, because I thought that, good or bad, it could never now go – and I was very pessimistic about where it would lead. Like the vast majority of Wikipedia members, I mainly participate to keep the subjects I care about at a reasonable standard and free of abuse (especially as articles so often appear at the top of search engine results) – I’m not personally here to win barnstars, or make edits without sufficient knowledge. I’d rather concentrate than flitter around – it strikes me as more productive and enjoyable that way. My Wiki behaviour is perfectly acceptable – I have no obligation to do any more than seems fit to me. Wikipedia did depress me, but now I can actually visualise it being superseded I’m far more philosophical.

TIME FOR CHANGE

Wikipedia’s ultimate survival, to me, will depend on ethical regulation – first in outlawing exploitation, and then with better control of the countless editors who pitch in. Wikipedia must explain to us all what it stands for, and be clearer too about what it offers. The world outside doesn’t understand it well at all, I’ve often found.

So much labour has been given to Wikipedia out of love – are we really going to let it sink into this mire? The issues of Veropedia, money changing hands, and the GNU Free Documentation Licence (important though they are) all seem less important than us asking what Wikipedia actually means. What does ‘neutral’ mean? Isn’t it unrealistic? Are we clever enough to be ‘objective’? And shouldn’t we say both ‘be bold and be wise’? How can it be free when we pay through exploitation? What value has ‘free’ when the articles are dead? --Matt Lewis (talk) 21:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This brings up a few points, although I won't even pretend that I'm acknowledging the whole argument above (which I think is interesting). It is impossible to be completely objective. We are subjective about things without even realizing it. Wikipedia relies on the idea that multiple subjective people will somehow come up with the most objective point of view. Also, the best rules on wikipedia, in my mind, are the vague ones. "Assume good faith", "be bold", and "ignore all rules". These rules place a necessary trust in wikieditors that wikipedia could not survive without. I don't want us to get so specific that we lose the wonderfulness of these vague rules. The "moral fortress" does not lie in the rules, but in the integrity of the editors themselves. A bad editor is going to be a bad editor, money or no money, and good editors will be good, money or no.
Also, I think that the core articles need improvement worse than any other area on wikipedia. I have been trying to point this out for awhile. It is the core articles which are published in wikipedia Cd and print versions, and it is the core which academics look at when they want to point out how lame wikipedia is. You ask how many of us came to edit the core? I did. I don't appreciate the insinuation that to "edit the core" is to be "flitting around". I don't pretend I know what I'm going to write into any article, ever, whether I know the subject or not. I believe it helps, but that it is more important to respect the sources and rely on the community to gradually make things better. I think this competition is great. Sure, the core list gets a little silly, but I credit that to Danny's acknowledging that the core is different for different people. If Veropedia or a load of POV forks were on there I might get suspicious, but they aren't. The use of loaded, POV buzzwords like "bribe" in the above post (ironically in an essay calling for neutrality) doesn't change the fact that this contest will benefit wikipedia.
If Veropedia is really taking articles that suck, then it will go down the tubes itself, and while I wish Danny the best, that isn't really my concern. My concern is with what I can contribute to wikipedia. Wrad (talk) 22:05, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I liked your line "Wikipedia relies on the idea that multiple subjective people will somehow come up with the most objective point of view.".
I didn't mean to suggest that editing the core was flitting around. I was making the point that the majority of people clearly join Wikipedia to edit or create non-core stuff. Surely the 2,000,000 article figure backs this up?
I wrote the paragraph about no wanting to ’flit around’ because I keep getting asked to shut up and edit articles! I wanted to explain that going on a rampage editing articles isn't 1) something I want to do 2) something I think necessarily benefits articles, and 3) not necessarily what Wikipedia need be about. If others love doing it, fair enough.
Does Wikipedia have to focus on perfecting ‘core’ articles, anyway? I like the kind of stuff I put in my list above. The eclectic side of Wikipedia won't get championed by people like Veropedia - but without them Wikipedia may not have got very far at all. The idea of any Wikipedia articles being frozen in time is all wrong to me. Veropedia have proven with this list that their idea of core is actually very wide-ranging. So when will they stop? Wikipedia is flawed but is living – why not keep it like that? It’s jealous brother Veropedia will be demoting Wikipedia by promoting itself. For Veropedia to come close to Wikipedia’s massive search-engine ranking power (how often is Wikipedia at or near the top of a search?), it will simply have to become seriously linked-to on Wikipedia pages. That’s the way page ranking works. Think about it. Let’s stop being naïve guys, and really have a look where this is clearly heading. And does anyone start a business without a plan? I just don’t think it’s right.
And as someone else has said, the precedent this sets alone must be addressed. Wikipedia needs to be internally strengthened, not opened up to the markets!--Matt Lewis 13:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Your paranoid delusions are cute and fun to read:
"the page-protecting ‘Super-editor’ John Reaves, who has 200 different man/woman/ethnic personas, which are ‘fleshed-out’ when it’s suited – look at his ‘creation logs’ - especially Q-Funk, Bilal.shahid and Miraluka (who edits with a ‘brother’!) – he even uploads people’s faces to give them more life! That kind of multiple-roll play-acting (however productive and well-intended) day after day must surely go to the editor’s head. Clearly Reaves is now a joint Wikipedia/Veropedia man! Is he riding a tandem through the loophole to money and power?"
See WP:ACC and go improve an article. John Reaves 22:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Myth debunking time. I've contributed some of the articles I've created or made major changes to, articles which are in no way core topics and are completely unmarketable, but I have been asked to upload the stuff I'm writing at the moment to Veropedia because it apparently interests a few people. I've recently created articles on a minor Scottish reservoir, a former Scotch Whisky distillery and other completely of the beaten path topics. The articles are still the same on Wikipedia, I still check them here, I've uploaded a number of photographs to Commons that I've either taken myself or I've found on Flickr or other free sites, so there's no question I'm not helping Wikipedia or Commons, I'm actually greatly benefiting two projects at the same time with my work. No amount of rambling will dissuade me from that, and I really wish you would just let people make up their own minds instead of trying to endlessly stuff uneducated nonsense such as this down our throats. Nick (talk) 22:46, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

You know what is stupid? I did not make these lists. I simply compiled existing lists: WP:CORE, etc. See Category: Wikipedia core topics for some hints as to where I got them. I filled it out by adding all the US states, all the Canadian provinces, all the Australian whatever-they-call-thems, and all the elements on the periodic table. And when people asked me if they could add articles, I was generally receptive to the idea. As for John Wayne, but not Kurosawa, the truth is that I have seen more Kurosawa films than I have John Wayne films, although personally, my fondness lies with Pasolini. And why Korosawa and not Eisenstein? Perhaps you can suggest them, instead of bemoaning their absence. Why colon? Well, I am still reeling from my last colonoscopy. As for excluding Anne Frank, Matt doesn't even wanna go there with me, because he's jumping into my professional turf. She wrote a diary but so did Moshe Flinker, while personally I think Tadeusz Borowski's memoirs are among the best. So why core? Because my belief is that Wikipedia (and Veropedia) are, first and foremost a reference for students. I believe that Reproductive system (a three-line stub when the contest began) is more important for students than Anal-oral contact (a well referenced article, complete with images and footnotes). You see, Matt, regardless of whether you like it or not, there is a hierarchy of knowledge: you can't do physics until you can multiply; you can’t play Bach until you can play a scale; you can't appreciate the poetry of al-Jazir until you've read the Qur'an. Danny (talk) 22:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Not official?

Um... Why was User:Tango allowed to add that makeshift tag when it's blocked for everyone else? Aren't admins only supposed to add things to blocked pages after a consensus is built? It seems like this admin is just adding to the edit war... Abuse of power, anyone? I acknowledge that this contest isn't part of the wiki foundation, but there does seem to be quite a consensus of wikieditors supporting it, and I don't agree with the part of the tag saying it is not supported by the wikicommunity. Let it speak for itself! If it really isn't, then no one will submit anything they've improved. Wrad (talk) 22:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The tag is well-placed; the community does not support this contest. The lock was not; there was no edit war. Why are you cheer-leading this contest so hard? Bensaccount (talk) 22:36, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I disagree about the tag (obviously). I don't understand what you're saying about the lock. It was not... supported by the community? What wasn't it, exactly? Because I feel strongly that the core articles need to be improved. I have felt that way for a long time and I think this is a good way to get it done. Wrad (talk) 22:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
First, hyperbole like "abuse of power" is not needed. Second, Tango should probably have mentioned his or her intentions before (or at least after) the edit. Third, it really doesn't matter. Nothing major was affected. Do we need to create more drama by going deeper into this discussion? Mahalo. --Ali'i 22:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I don't know what else to call it. It really seems like a big no-no to take it into your own hands to edit a page that has been protected when you have been entrusted with admin powers. If I was to judge a person by their actions, I would say that is abuse of power. I don't think that's a stretch. All us "little people" are helpless to stop this editor. What else am I to do? If it really doesn't matter, then why have so many people been talking about just such an edit for so long. Community consensus seems to agree on one thing: such an edit is a big deal. Wrad (talk) 22:44, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to report Tango or anything, though. It was probably just a heat of the moment thing. I think it would be a really good idea if admins just left the page alone, though. Wrad (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh great. Now we have an edit war going on between two admins. Can blocks have two layers, one for admins and one for the rest of us? Wrad (talk) 22:56, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
lol well said. Bensaccount (talk) 23:07, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

This is the project namespace, the principle of admins not editing protected pages does not apply in the same way, since this is not a content dispute. The protection was unnecessary anyway - who protects pages after half a dozen edits? This project is not official, and until I edited it, there was nothing to that effect (in fact, the unqualified use of "we" had quite the opposite effect). Perhaps my other changes were enough, but I think it's best to be clear in these situations. --Tango (talk) 22:59, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Seems like all we have going on now is absolute chaos. Every man for himself. Ignore all rules to the extreme. He did this so I'm doing that. And it's not just Tango, but many. Looks like the worst thing this project has done is cause huge fights, not make articles biased. Wrad (talk) 23:04, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
There's a real easy way to end those fights... Mr.Z-man 23:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Unlock

[edit] Initial discussion

I have a proposed addition to this page to make. I have reached consensus with the person who I was "edit-warring" with. Is this unwarranted block going to extend indefinitely? Since when are admins allowed to lock pages without even trying to engage in discussion on the talk page? I made 2 edits. TWO EDITS DOES NOT WARRANT LOCKING A PAGE! Bensaccount (talk) 22:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

I was actually kind of surprised by the block as well. Ben refrained from editing for quite awhile, although he really wanted to revert. Wrad (talk) 22:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmmm, lock was made by John Reaves who seems (according to the long-winded essay above) to have personal stake in the content of this page. Bensaccount (talk) 22:50, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That's not good. Good grief, what a mess. Wrad (talk) 22:51, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
The reverted edit in question was the wrong place for a personal opinion - you know better than that. From this viewpoint it seemed like Bensaccount was just trying to spark an editwar rather than try and defuse one that was brewing. Not good practice. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 22:54, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Incorrect, there is no rule against personal opinion on project pages. In fact this very page starts out with one "we all acknowledge the ideals of quality over quantity" although it is sadly not attributed to its author. Bensaccount (talk) 22:58, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That's not really the point, though. The point is that the admin who blocked the page had a conflict of interest, which isn't the best thing to do, even if a block is warranted. But given the admin-war now going on, it looks like it was a good idea after all. Wrad (talk) 23:01, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Yeah, there is. It's called WP:SOAP. Cheers, WilyD 23:15, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
That policy does not apply to project pages. Every project page is the opinion of Wikipedia editors. Bensaccount (talk) 23:21, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Try reading it a little harder. WilyD 23:24, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
"This applies to articles, categories, templates, talk page discussions, and user pages." Not project pages. Bensaccount (talk) 23:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You probably need to keep trying then. WilyD 23:30, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No disrespect, but I just quoted directly from the page. Bensaccount (talk) 23:38, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
It's very easy to quote things without reading them, and miss the point entirely. WilyD 23:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Frankly, the rule says in plain writing that it does not pertain to project pages. It also is quite obvious that the policies and guidelines of Wikipedia are the opinions of the editors. How can you even be arguing this. Do you think these things write themselves? Bensaccount (talk) 23:45, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

There's nothing in the protection policy that prohibits protecting a page you have a "personal interest in". There is however a relevant policy here called Wikipedia:Edit war. Preventing disruption to the project is a good thing. John Reaves 00:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

This page has now been locked for 24 hours because of two edits, and three reversions. We later resolved the dispute. There was never an edit war. It is quite obvious why you are locking the page and your failure to admit this reason makes me think worse of you. I will come back tomorrow, hopefully this abuse of power will have ceased. Pages are meant to be open to all users. Bensaccount 23:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Hmm. I don't understand you really. An an edit you made yesterday seems to conflict with your messages here. It seems you've either changed your mind or are not really taking this seriously, and just want to cause trouble. And no, bolding your messages on a talk page does not imply seriousness. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:40, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
That is not the edit war that Reaves is referring to. Edit warring between admins on an already locked page is a different matter entirely, and should provide all the more reason to unlock the page. Bensaccount 23:45, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
What are your intentions when the page is unlocked? --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:52, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
To add the agreed upon statement in the section above. Unless anyone is against me doing so. Either way this is irrelevant. It seems to me that what you are implying is that you are locking the page to prevent my addition. Try discussing it instead. Bensaccount 23:56, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Please show me the agreement you speak of to, as you so rightly put it, your addition. There is no consensus - but 40 sections later, there has been plenty of discussion. Your intent to add your addition back to the project page is exactly the reason why the lock should stay in place for the time being. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 00:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
As I just said I would not add the statement if anyone is against me doing so. Either way this is irrelevant. If you are locking the page to prevent my addition you are officially abusing your power. Simply state you are against the addition and I will not add it. Bensaccount 01:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

I object to the proposed addition to the project page. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 01:07, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Fine I won't add it. Now unlock the page. Or should I assume all your comments here have been a waste of time. Bensaccount 01:08, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I can't. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 01:12, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Why not? Heres some advice: In the future do not use locking a page as a means of preventing an edit you dislike. Bensaccount 01:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I object to unlocking the page, and I object to the statement that Bensaccount wishes to add to it. Bensaccount, you can make your case here on the talk page.--Mumia-w-18 02:17, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Read above. It says I will not add the disputed statement without full consensus. Three times! Bensaccount 17:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Content disputes policy

Except in cases of clear vandalism, or issues with legal impact such as copyright or defamation, pages protected in an edit war are protected in whatever version they happen to be currently in. Protection during an edit war is not an endorsement of the current version. Editors should not ask for a specific version of a page to be protected or, if it has already been protected, reverted to a different version. Instead, editors should attempt to resolve the dispute on the related talk page. See also m:The Wrong Version.

During edit wars, administrators should not protect pages when they are involved as a party to the dispute, except in the case of simple vandalism or libel issues against living people. Administrators should not edit pages that are protected due to a content dispute, unless there is consensus for the change, or the change is unrelated to the dispute. However, this should only be done with great caution, and administrators doing so should indicate this on the article's talk page.

Since page protections in content disputes are intended to be temporary, appropriate expiration dates should be provided when implementing such protections. It is considered to be inappropriate to protect a page repeatedly due to the same content dispute, as this disrupts the normal, non-contentious editing of the page. Instead, blocks should be placed against users responsible for persistent edit warring.

In other words, keeping this page locked for two days now because of a content dispute in which the administrator is deeply involved can not be considered as anything but a severe violation protection policy. Especially since the administrator has not provided an expiration date or a valid reason for protection. Bensaccount 17:03, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Is anyone still in favour of having this page protected? --Tango 23:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
No-one responded, so I've unprotected the page. --Tango 15:24, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Banner

Can we resolve the Banner dispute here? I for one support the banner, as the page in not official nor does it have the full support of the community imhop. Please state your opinion here and the reasoning behind it. Bensaccount (talk) 23:09, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

  • Presumably, every Wikiproject page would also need such a banner, as well as the mainpage, AN/I, AN and a host of others. This discussion belongs at The Village Pump, not here. WilyD 23:13, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This discussion definitely belongs here, as it pertains to the content on this page. I have no clue why you would suggest otherwise. Bensaccount (talk) 23:17, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Because the reasoning for placing it here identically applies to Wikipedia:Wikiproject Chemistry, or Wikipedia:Administrator's Noticeboard as well, so the banner would need to be placed there as well, so any discussion needs to see more eyes. WilyD 23:20, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
No this is a separate page. Discussion regarding the content of this page belongs on this discussion page. That is the only way we will resolve the dispute about this page. Bensaccount (talk) 23:25, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This is a project page describing a Wikipedia project undertaken by Wikipedia editors. If such pages require disclaimers, they all require disclaimers. This is a pretty simple concept. Not every policy page has a seperate discussion about how to word the "This is a policy" tag, they're all done the same way, centrally. It's the only way the project space can be consistant and readable. WilyD 23:27, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
This page is nothing like other wikiprojects. Other wikiprojects are just a way to aid communication between like minded editors. This is a project involving giving money to people for editing pages (I know it's a contest, not payment, but it's still giving money for edits), which is completely different. Until I clarified the page it said "we" were doing this without giving any idea as to who "we" were, and it also didn't say where the money was coming from. Those two things combined made the page seem (to me, at least) like it was an official thing. My clarification has stopped the page being actively misleading, but still think it is important to be completely clear about what this project is, and a banner is the simplest way to do that, IMO. --Tango (talk) 23:39, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
There are far better ways to go about resolving this. WP:TEA for example. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:29, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Ugh since when did there become so many loopholes for people to avoid having to explain their positions about a page and thereby avoid resolving their differences. This is sickening. Bensaccount (talk) 23:31, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

Ok leave the banner out. It is more important that this page gets unlocked. Anyone opposed to unlocking this page without the banner? Bensaccount (talk) 23:37, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

The protection and the banner are completely unrelated. The protection was to stop a completely different dispute. --Tango (talk) 23:40, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
You are overselling the importance of unlocking the page. Give it a break. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
Pages are meant to be editable by all users. I am not overselling anything. You have a personal stake in keeping this page locked. State your reasoning, engage in discussion, don't abuse admin power. I am going to take a break. I can not stand this any longer. Bensaccount (talk) 23:55, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
If that is the case it should have been unlocked a long time ago. Bensaccount (talk) 23:42, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

It was a little ironic to protect the page to say the least! The competition itself is causing these problems - this was all inevitable, surely? I find the advert so corny it needs re-writing purely on grounds of taste! They basically need to make it clear who and what they are. No one else should have to do it! And certainly no one would have guessed.

If they don’t want to ammend it, someone else inserting a new heading (rather than an ‘unofficial’ banner, which they wouldn't accept either) that concisely details Veropedia, is fair enough I think. It doesn’t have to say ‘negative effects’ to convey the mischief, just Veropedia is/Veropedia is not/What its about/What it does/etc – some kind of disclaimer basically (like most professional adverts have!) Now I wonder why they didn’t do it? Were they a little unsure of how things might pan out? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Matt Lewis (talk • contribs) 00:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Maybe because Danny actually wants to make Wikipedia better? Mr.Z-man 00:48, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] License change

This is outrageous. I guess our founding father didn't foresee this situation, where for-profit entterprises profit from our content (think answer.com and all other mirrors, as well as wikia). This is explicitly allowed on the GFDL. But we the community think that shouldn't happen, so it's time that we, the community, take matters into our hands. This should be discussed in the Village Pump, ANI, etc: we need a license change, into a creative commons -NC license. This has gone too far: Not only they're taking our content and profiting, as all the other mirrors do: this new clone is for-profit is also improving the encylopedia. out rageous. We didn't see this coming when we allowed other people to reuse our content. We must change our license. 66.175.215.127 (talk) 23:18, 29 November 2007 (UTC)

  1. What has that got to do with this page?
  2. Who has a problem with answers.com etc. using our content?
  3. How do you intend to change the license?
--Tango (talk) 23:41, 29 November 2007 (UTC)
I think he/she's being sarcastic. --seav (talk) 02:24, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I thought of that, but it didn't make much sense from that perspective either... --Tango (talk) 11:41, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Clarification of competition ownership

Please let me apology for the fact I edited a protected page (which, I think, should be unprotected...). I wished to simply clarify that the Contest is privately funded rather than WMF funded. I tried to do so in a non-aggressive fashion (no glaring banner) and to avoid trouble, chose Danny's words to do so (words found in this talk page). I would appreciate that the few words be kept, even though the page was protected. Otherwise, I'll simply start a request for unprotection :-) Anthere (talk) —Preceding comment was added at 09:03, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Couldn't have removed the extraneous fullstop at he end of Danny's Contest while you were at it? ;-) --Ali'i 13:57, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
I for one appreciate what you have done – but why is your compromise so none-glaring, as you put it? It’s almost apologetic – I couldn’t even see it when I first looked! My worry is that many administrators are a little afraid of the Veropedia gang. There shouldn’t have to be a compromise here, as Veropedia, I believe, should be fully mentioned, providing this competition exists at all - otherwise it's neither fish nor foul (which suits them fine I feel).
Needless to say I’d prefer this non-Wikipedia competition outlawed – even if it was for free, but especially as it's for cash. Who’s with me? Can I offer money for some support here? Hey – now that’s an IDEA! --Matt Lewis 03:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Regarding your inserted line 'not under the auspices of the Wikipedia Foundation' - don't we need a statement from the WMF on Veropedia? Have they made one yet? Is it too complicated to make one? Can anyone in Wikipedia do it? Would it have to be a vote?... --Matt Lewis 03:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
How is it a non-Wikipedia competition? The sooner you see this competition is purely run on and for Wikipedia, the sooner you'll stop making some pretty wild accusations which are totally unfounded. This simply isn't the place to be dragging up your concerns about Veropedia. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 05:06, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
What does Veropedia have to do with it? This is a contest run by a few individual Wikipedians, the fact that they are also Veropedians is irrelevant. That aside, what kind of statement do you want? Veropedia has nothing to do with the WMF... --Tango 13:46, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cash for writing

[edit] Initial discussion

I had the opportunity to think over that issue in the past few weeks, after WMF received a grant from a Foundation willing to support the development of illustrations on our projects. You may find a description of the proposal here. This project will be run by a volunteer, who will get the wikicommons community to create a list of illustrations to work on. WMF will pay for the authors creating the selected illustrations.

On the principle, I am absolutely not opposed to the concept of authors being paid. But I think it raises issues that needs to be in our mind when we accept such things.

I actually opposed the Greenspun project, because I think introducing a financial compensation may have an impact on the dynamics of the community, in particular if funded by the Foundation. On this very point, I think it is important to make a difference between a financial compensation given by WMF and a compensation given by a third party. I believe the negative impacts of a payment through WMF may be much more important, as it could be seen as an attempt to control the community, and may legally be perceived as an editorial-role rather than hosting role. However, other board members thought that this risk was limited, due to the fact the compensation was clearly offered by a third party (Greenspun), and WMF was merely a transmission agent.

The source of the funding is one thing. There are four other issues at stake. One is the fact the cible is text. One is the amount of compensation per act (in Danny's case, 100 dollars). Second is the total amount considered (here 500 dollars). And last is the fact of using Wikipedia itself (the project) as a place to organize the service (calling for participation, promoting the contest, listing the funded articles etc..)

The risk is rather limited on illustrations, because illustrations are difficult to modify. It is likely that after the illustration is created (and paid), it will not be changed or even deleted. The situation is very different for text. Will it be okay if personX change the text, it gets approved by the 3 members jury, paid, and one week later, content entirely changed by other authors ? Will their be attempts to restore content ?

Second, amount of compensation
I noticed someone earlier in the above discussion said that he believed 100 dollars was likely to be a small amount for most participants of the contest, but it was not small to him. I think this is an issue which can not be left aside. 100 dollars is maybe not a lot for an american, but it is a lot in some countries. For some people, it will be a stipend, for others, it will be worth 6 months salary in their country. Can we neglect this point ?

I actually believe that in *this* case, we can neglect this point, because the total envelop of the compensation is limited (500 dollars). However, would it be the same if the total envelop proposed was 1 000 000 dollars ? Which would mean 10 000 payments ? Small scale seems fine, but will it still be fine at large scale ? What would be the impact ?

fourth, location and person. I think most of you feel fine with this proposal because it is run by someone you know. As such, you tolerate that pages are set up for the contest and that advertisement is made for Veropedia for a mere 500 dollars (very cheap advertisement indeed). Would it be different if a rather unknown person was showing up to do the same ? Would it be different if Danny was proposing a compensation, but only for the pages jew-related issues ? Would it be different if the person was proposing 10 000 payments, blatantly saying that Virgin Foundation is supporting the project, and using Wikipedia meta pages to advertise this project ? Would you be happy ?

I would not be happy. But the question of "at which point will it stop to be just fun and fine, to get to a point where it is not okay" is open.

Anthere (talk) 09:39, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

It should be noted that Veropedia has no interest in uploading specific articles for purposes of exposure and advertising. The range of articles we have currently may appear limited, and that there is an imbalance in the number of articles on one topic and very few or none on another. However, this is just a result of the fact we allow any articles to be added to Veropedia which meet the required standard and quality - and as the collection of preserved Wikipedia articles increases - this apparent imbalance will disappear.
This contest really isn't about promoting Veropedia. Admittedly it doesn't look that way to the more observant members of the Wikipedia community, but seriously the only mention of Veropedia is on this talk page. There was one mention of it on the entry page I think - but this has since been edited out. Fair enough in my opinion. I feel people who for whatever reason dislike Veropedia are deliberately trying to associate this contest with it - when actually the aim of this contest is to help improve Wikipedia, where 2,700 core articles remain in a bad state still.
I will gladly admit that the core reason for the contest is to improve articles and I have no reasons to doubt your good faith about that. However, it is a fact it will result in promoting Veropedia to editors of Wikipedia. Right ? So, my question stands as to whether you would make a difference if this contest was funded by another type of private commercial company. There is no attack meant here, simply a question. No big deal :-) Anthere 22:36, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
The point about the value of $100 - I understand where you're coming from. My view on this is that, regardless of what the personal value of that $100 is to the contest winners, the end result is the same. Wikipedia gets some great core articles fixed up, expanded and sourced - and that's a job well done. Where $100 means 6 months wages to an editor - it just gives them a stronger incentive to participate I guess. Is that such a bad thing?
This contest is rewarding improvements to articles. If a winning entry was greatly modified post-contest, it would have to be decided (like all other edits) whether the new edits actually improve the article or not. Veropedia will hopefully be able to preserve the articles that were improved in this contest - and what you explained above is exactly the kind of thing Veropedia looks to help resolve. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 11:11, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
It's not quite Judaism, but we have put up much the same sum for furry articles, another topic that tends to be contentious. That's been running for a couple of months without any problems. I understand one person who's claimed a reward so far even intends to spend it on acquiring items to help them improve Wikipedia in the future.
Several other rewards have been offered and claimed over the last couple of years. It's hardly a new concept, just the age-old theme of trading time and/or experience for money, where people have enough of one and not enough of another.
I think what matters most is that there is no incentive to write towards a particular bias. Featured/good articles are a good goal for such rewards because they are judged by the community - to get the money, they have to do something that other Wikipedians deem good.
If it was suggested that the articles might be swayed in a particular direction to appeal more to the judges, that might be not so good, so community trust is important for those people who are judging. Wikipedians need to be sure that a reward will result in honest improvement of Wikipedia, whatever area it is in. GreenReaper (talk) 11:27, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Oh come off it Anthere. Not a single one of your proposed theories as to why this is bad makes any sense to any thinking person. What on earth makes you think that after the contest we would attempt to "force" the winning version? There's no basis for that accusation, as none of those running the contest have any vested interested in forcing "their" version of the article. Why would it make a difference? The content is still Wikipedia's, and will remain that way. The contest is just a way of judging that "over X period of time, Editor A improved article M the best. Here's a prize." How is that bad? Rewarding contributors for doing a good job is somehow a bad thing? I fail to see the logic.
On your second point, you yourself make the statement "I actually believe that in *this* case, we can neglect this point, because the total envelop of the compensation is limited." Why even bring it up? Has there been an announcement that the pot's been raised and they're giving out 10,000 prizes? Even if so, aren't others free to dispense their own money as they see fit?
Thirdly, if you think this contest is some cheap-shot advertisement for Veropedia, you've got your priorities terribly out of order. How can a website that promotes the distrobution of free content and actively encourages donation to the WMF be a bad thing? And yet we allow things like promotional videos to be added to articles and not discovered or removed for a month and a half?
All I'm saying is (and this is to everyone on the page), before you make accusations, please try to get your facts straight. ^demon[omg plz] 13:14, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
One last thing....didn't you judge another of Danny's contests? How is this any different? ^demon[omg plz] 14:12, 30 November 2007 (UTC)

Not a single one of your proposed theories as to why this is bad makes any sense to any thinking person. I tend to think very little of people starting a paragraph of discussion by a personal attack. I tried to articulate my general position toward payments being proposed in exchange of text production, in a polite and long range fashion. If you choose to respond to it exclusively using personal attacks and fallacious arguments, I am not really interested discussing with you. I will only clarify that I was a judge in a Danny contest which did not lead to any payment. I would not have been so if it had been against a payment. Anthere

A troll? Assume good faith please. I do apologize if I came across as having made personal attacks, as it was not my intention to do so. I am a member of MedCom, OTRS, a bot operator, administrator and an editor in good standing, having contributed nearly 2 years now. When I read your post, I was merely frustrated as to what I perceived a lack of acceptance towards a contest (and project) that is geared solely on improving Wikipedia and providing free content. Promoting conflicts of interest, POV, and ownership of articles is by no means encouraged by this contest (and I would think the judges would actively discourage it). I just wish people would see this contest for what it really is. ^demon[omg plz] 22:55, 30 November 2007 (UTC)
Well, I do apology if I came out as not assuming good faith, but uncivility is more often a sign of trolling than a sign of "good old discussion between honest people". In any cases, I said what my position was and that's it. Not much to add since the contest will happen whatever my position on the matter. Anthere

“Not a single one of your proposed theories as to why this is bad makes any sense to any thinking person” That was more than uncivil – it was bullying in my opinion.

Anthere wrote; “I think most of you feel fine with this proposal because it is run by someone you know. As such, you tolerate that pages are set up for the contest and that advertisement is made for Veropedia for a mere 500 dollars (very cheap advertisement indeed). Would it be different if a rather unknown person was showing up to do the same?”

Why don’t you try and answer instead of rudely declaring that no ‘thinking person’ could agree with it? It was spot on to me.

The continuous stream of exasperated comments from Veropedia members, like “I just wish people would see this contest for what it really is” are quintessentially arrogant. Even if Veropedia was acting altruistically (and the more I read the more clearer it is to me that they are not) - they must still be subject to commonplace checks and balances! Veropedia people act like they are above such common indignities – with no other reason offered than that they are themselves!

They remind me of Tony Blair. Whenever he was in trouble (which was often) he would exasperatedly say ‘Look – this is me – I’m one of the good guys!’ A master of avoiding the question, was Tony. Members of cabinet were startled to find out that the popular young lawyer hardly knew even the basics of how Britain was run (especially financially) when he took office as PM! No one thought to ask! Honestly – they all assumed he knew. He spent the next 2 and half terms cajoling, bullying and firing people. The many Veropedians patrolling this page are constantly exasperated because they self-righteously expect ‘carte blanche’ to do whatever they want – how dare we question them? And who voted for them? Who vets them?

Is no one embarrassed by so many administrators failing to understand the issues? It’s doing nothing for Wikipedia’s name.

Labyrinthine though it is, Wikipedia wouldn’t even rate as a banana republic in the big wide world. This page is humming with the kind of the kind of ego’s that are clearly ripe for corruption. They either can’t see the arguments, can’t understand them, or think they are above them. --Matt Lewis 03:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

So tell us what exactly we're supposed to do about the fact you don't believe us? It seems like you're trying to press us to "come clean" about something. What exactly?
Oh and re: Is no one embarrassed by so many administrators failing to understand the issues? - Perhaps that should tell you something about how other people view this drama you're trying to conjure. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 05:37, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Err, I think we all acknowledge that when Veropedia improves Wikipedia content it benefits ... in fact, anything Veropedia does that makes Wikipedia better is good for Veropedia ... so to say "it's not altruistic" is pretty silly. It's an impossible distinction for anyone but us to make ... no point in considering that all Veropedians devoted hundreds, thousands or tens of thousands of hours to Wikipedia before they became involved in a project to make Wikipedia even better ... man, what a bunch of selfish fucks. Cheers, WilyD 15:35, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
But why would critics of Veropedia be selfish? What do we gain from our standpoint? Is it selfish to want an uncorrupted and incorruptible Wikipedia? - that is all we want to gain ourselves! The cost of attaining these Veropedia 'improvements' is ultimately to lose Wikipedia. I can see that passions are high, but we have many valid points. How can improvements that haven't happened yet be such a personal loss? You talk as if we are selfishly stealing them from you! Stealing what? I think Wikipedia has been grabbed inside by this competition. Everything about it has been questionable. --Matt Lewis 17:02, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
As far as I can see, critics are motivated by misunderstandings of the situation. For instance, I don't see how writing better articles is losing Wikipedia. Nor do I see how adding references to articles, or fixing broken external links, or removing vandalism or libel are losing Wikipedia. Oh no, part of Wikipedia is lost to Veropedia! Again, Wikipedia goes down! Jeez, these assholes just can't stop adding references Again, copyediting and verifying information Man, you should take me to ArbCom over me causing the loss of Wikipedia I've never seen Wikipedia so corrupted! Who will stop these marauders from adding content, fixing vandalism, copyediting, adding references and obtaining free images? I think I forgot my point. WilyD 17:41, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Dear Matt Lewis,

Yes, Veropedia's profit does not necessarily translate to higher quality information on Wikipedia. As I said earlier, if Veropedia wants to sell toilet-brushes, it could heavily bias articles with toilet-brush related content. Arguing on this page which is mainly used by the Veropedia supporters does not seem to be very effective. It would seem from a philosophical standpoint that Veropedia supporters do not see the value in discussion and improvement but prefer to have all arguments dead and frozen (hence the endlessly locked page). I recommend you try to communicate with the members of Wikipedia instead. This is why I am trying to get this page unlocked and to eventually reach a consensus for including a statement such as the following:

It is my opinion that edits motivated by the money and judgment of a select few ought to be suspect as lower quality and less valuable than edits motivated by the more traditional reasons for editing Wikipedia because flawed motives --such as submission to judgment of individuals who are not actively engaged in the creation, editing, or discussion of the articles--will likely lead to flawed results. Bensaccount 17:57, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Hi Ben -I've kept out of the tit-fot-tats, partly because there's a problem with consensus when people refuse to budge! The Veropedia lot make a powerful team - I can't see them doing anything they don't want to. Not at the moment anyway. They are icy for sure.
I fully agree with your point - there is no evidence at all that we will get better articles, in terms of either the creation or the vetting, due to poor motives/knowledge and inexpert knowledge/poor motives. We're not up against deep thinkers, but we need more a lot more people involved to find 'consensus' than we have now. The standard of what I've seen on Veropedia is not good enough for a supposed 'showcase.' Wikipedia is free, Veropedia is cheap. Wikipedians need to unite - you're right.--Matt Lewis 18:47, 1 December 2007 (UTC)--~
This stuff is User talk page material. Veropedians are Wikipedians too. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 18:53, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I would like to assume good faith, but they don't seem to share the same motives as Wikipedians (constantly improving pages, freedom for everyone to edit), and they don't seem to follow the same policies (see above). I am not so sure they are. Bensaccount 18:59, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Everyone can edit articles - because Veropedia do all editing on Wikipedia! It is impossible to edit articles on Veropedia directly, not even minor corrections. This is deliberate, since all edits must be made on Wikipedia. If you went and read up on Veropedia and maybe even read the FAQ, perhaps you'd understand it better. Due to the fact all edits are made on Wikipedia, policies here must be and are followed. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 19:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
It still sounds all too "My broker is E. F. Hutton, and E. F. Hutton says"... it sounds like submission to judgement of an individual who is not actively engaged in the contest. Til Eulenspiegel 18:11, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
It is certainly submission to a judge engaged in the contest. The problem is that it the judge is not involved in the actual discussion or creation process of the specific articles, so their judgment can not be questioned the way it could be if they improved the articles in the traditional way. Bensaccount 18:18, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
Perhaps the word "appeasement" would be more appropriate than "submission". Bensaccount 18:29, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I was referring to the introduction of your statement onto the page, as a judgement against the whole contest. Sorry for any confusion. Til Eulenspiegel 18:33, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
You mean the "my opinion part"? I actually think this should be made into a formal guideline: Edits motivated by the money and judgment of a select few ought to be suspect as lower quality and less valuable than edits motivated by the more traditional reasons for editing Wikipedia because flawed motives --such as appeasement of individuals who are not actively engaged in the creation, editing, or discussion of the articles--will likely lead to flawed results. Bensaccount 18:40, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Proposed new guideline

Bensaccount, you want there to be a new guideline that assumes that edits motivated by money that is provided by people not actively involved in the editing process be assumed to be of lower quality than edits from people who are normally involved in the article's development. I have a few questions:

  1. What if the editor who offers the money is also involved in the article's daily editing processes?
  2. If the edits are assumed to be of lower quality, what does that mean for the article?
  3. How would this guideline be enforced?
  4. Why would it be enforced?
  5. What do you intend to achieve with this new guideline?

--Mumia-w-18 20:13, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Who proposed a new policy? Honestly.--Matt Lewis 21:15, 1 December 2007 (UTC)

Thanks--good catch. I just changed "policy" to "guideline." Bensaccount is asking for a new guideline.--Mumia-w-18 21:22, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
The word ‘proposed’ was just as daft!
Bensaccount, if you are mulling over a possible new guideline – good idea. Don’t respond to the above goad though please! I’ll have a think too. Obviously, it would be done on the requisite guideline page. --Matt Lewis 21:50, 1 December 2007 (UTC)
I apologize for the "childish" comment, but the question is serious. Ignore my other questions, but please someone, when you're ready, tell me what the purpose of any new guideline would be. Note there are many ways for the new guideline to be ineffective.--Mumia-w-18 07:19, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Fair enough. It looks like someone will be declaring a proposed guideline (or suchlike) at some point fairly soon. --Matt Lewis 23:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Do you know what offends me?

Never mind Wikipedia being edited for money - I have improved a number of Wikipedia articles for transfer over to Veropedia, and haven't received a penny for it. I do it because I work in a further education college, and our students are barred from accessing Wikipedia because of its unreliability. With flagged revisions not appearing any time soon, it appears, Veropedia is - or will be - one of the only routes available to me in finding a modern resource for my students to use.

Even more however, I am offended by the insinuations above that Veropedia-related edits are somehow inferior to "ordinary" edits. Have you seen the state of what should be many of our core articles? Even many of our flagship featured articles tend to decay after reaching featured status if they aren't carefully watched. I have never heard so much tosh in my life, and even worse is the fact that we are being lectured about encyclopedia-building by an account that has contributed 45 mainspace edits this year ([1]), and until a couple of days ago was using Wikipedia to hawk his own services ([2]). There's a word for that. BLACKKITE 13:56, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

Bensaccount's contribution page is exemplary! He's clearly edited what he knows about (it’s nearly all chemistry-related), when he has felt that it was needed. 10/10 from me! I would instinctively trust his short edits for accuracy over those made by people who do 40 a day! (Many 40-a-dayers are perfectly fine - but if having to choose between the two for accuracy, it's a 'no-brainer' to me). I can't believe you have highlighted his mere '45 edits' this year, and have gone as far as to say that this 'lack of experience' makes him a troll on these pages! Regarding him saying he is looking for work as a technical illustrator – so what? He was unemployed and it’s his user page. (And he seems to have contributed a number of scientific images to Wikipedia anyway). He was not using the watchlist, or working for a company like Veropedia! I think he actually represents a good example of a fair limit in soliciting for financial gain on Wikipedia. --Matt Lewis 16:32, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
How can you say that when he resurrects his account after several months of inactivity purely to voice his objections to a contest? Reguardless of history, his recent activity does not bode well on him. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
What are you suggesting? What recent activity does not bode well? He seems normal to me, as I've said. He has always had periods of months off - why don't you look at his contributions? I think you should cast a critical eye towards your own - have you tried that yet? I'd be careful about who you go after - this seems to be a typical well-meaning editor. Are you going to fling mud at the workers? If you know anything bad about him - say it. --Matt Lewis 17:07, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
You sure know how to pick out some obscure points. Well meaning? No way. Not after the talk page messages he's been leaving people: "Come help me". --Sagaciousuk (talk) 18:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
'Obscure' is the wrong word for my last post, whatever you thought of it. What's wrong with bansaccount asking for help? It's obviously important to him. Is it any worse than you spying on his talk history? You are showing your age here!
'A Level' students (like Veropedia's Sagaciousuk) are 17 years old - non-UK people might not know that. It says a few things about Veropedia I think. Will Veropedia stand by the comments Segaciousuk is making, I wonder?--Matt Lewis 20:01, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
18 actually. Since when has age come into the equation? Just a quick view of Ben's user contribs page makes his edits to user talk pages stand out - what with all surrounding edits being Wikipedia talk. Am I going to go and ask fellow Veropedians to back me up here? No, because I don't need to. Many Veropedians are refraining from contributing to this page any more due to yourself and Ben becoming more and more tiresome to follow. It's just the same old jargon being tossed around, and you know what? I'm raising my hand and declaring myself out too. This isn't what I like doing on Wiki, and while I've tried to give answers to your questions and explain issues you pick out - you've just completely ignored me and everyone else who hasn't shared your point of view. If you wish to discuss this further, I have a user talk page. It might make a nice change to your user contribs. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 20:17, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
We have all of us here (as far as I can see) disagreed with the Veropedia line and have given valid reasons why. That is very different to 'ignoring' your comments - most of which have just been put-downs or simplistic repetitions. I have read every one - you have hardly dealt with the difficult issues raised at all. Suggesting I'm repeating 'old jargon' now is silly - I agree you need a break. --Matt Lewis 21:04, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

I am sorry your school blocks your students from information. You should try teaching your students to evaluate what they read instead. I am even more sorry your only resource consists of 5000 pages frozen from Wikipedia. If you like "featured articles" Maybe you should try Encarta, but in terms of utility you are better off going to Answers.com which has more articles (maybe even some more recently updated versions of Veropedia pages). Good luck to your students, they will need it. Bensaccount 14:27, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

My students are perfectly able to evaluate what they read. The problem tends to be subtle inaccuracies and POV-pushing, which are difficult to detect for your average 17-year-old. The fact that Veropedia only has 5000 articles isn't the issue. It's in its infancy, and it's about attempting to create a reliable resource. I dearly wish that they could use Wikipedia, but the good thing about Veropedia is that the corresponding Wikipedia articles are improved and referenced at the same time. I think that's a good thing all round; if you have an objection to "editing for money" as a principle then that is fine, but I don't see that it has any relevance other than a principle here. BLACKKITE 14:34, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
You have to question why regional school authorities call for Wikipedia to be blocked? Unreliable information, potential to mess around and not do the work/research they're meant to be doing to name just two. Veropedia provides the information to them on a silver plate, properly sourced, referenced, copy edited and some will soon even have academic approval. While I really like Wikipedia and what it provides, Veropedia hits the spot for free information without the bullshit. --Sagaciousuk (talk) 16:50, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Just out of curiosity, what do your students think of your blocking them from the community that will create and improve their potential information? Have you asked them? Bensaccount 14:38, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
Not my decision, unfortunately; the Internet access for our entire school district is controlled centrally, including which websites are blocked. Of course, there is nothing to stop them accessing Wikipedia from home when doing research. BLACKKITE 14:53, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
That is too bad. Veropedia is not a substitute, though. You were not around in the earlier years of Wikipedia and so perhaps you don't understand the motives that make it valuable enough that sites like Veropedia want to leach off it. The value of Wikipedia is that it is constantly improving and that so many people can and do improve it. These are the motives that made Wikipedia what it is today, not money or the judgment of a few judges. Such inferior motives will only lead to inferior results. See Citizendium. Anyways, Welcome to Wikipedia. Bensaccount 15:12, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

{unindent) No-one is saying Veropedia is a substitute for Wikipedia. It will never be that, and more importantly it doesn't need to be, because it's an academic tool. Therefore, the huge percentage of Wikipedia that is articles on minor aspects of fiction, semi-notable biographies, popular culture, trivia and assorted other non-academic subjects will never be ported over because it doesn't need to be there. I'd also argue that Wikipedia is not "constantly improving". Some of Wikipedia is improving, but a huge percentage stays static, often in a poor state, whilst some areas actively get worse due to the activities of edit-warrers, nationalists, POV-pushers and vandals. Can you imagine a student writing a dissertation on an aspect of East European politics, or the Israeli/Palestinian question, and expecting any given Wikipedia article to be accurate and neutral? It isn't realistic, unfortunately. Wikipedia is a fantastic project, but we need to accept its inherent weaknesses. BLACKKITE 15:28, 2 December 2007 (UTC)

If you think Veropedia can offer a neutral view of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict you haven't read the Veropedia Jerusalem article! It's just a snapshot of the biased Wikipedia one (which they inadvisedly made a Featured Article). Do you think students should have one single website for research? Even if Wikipedia covers everything, surely it should never be the one stop for anyone. It's only an encyclopedia, after all. Much of Wikipedia can never be more than an appraisal with citations and links – those reference, of course, are what matter. Also, certain subjects work better on Wikipedia than others – sciences for example. I like the idea of school-based Wiki’s myself. I wonder how many schools operate them. The original Wikis were made for closed disciplines and smaller groups, after all.
Veropedia are porting over non-core stuff already - look at their list. They need hundreds of thousands of articles. The reason for this is that Veropedia HAS to be popular to survive (partly because search engines rank by popularity). It runs off advertising too - not something I personally believe kids should be subjected to at school. --Matt Lewis 20:41, 2 December 2007 (UTC)
It is either absolutely disingenuous or just plain naive to suggest that, because Veropedia is ostensibly "vetting" "good" articles, the participation of that corporation is going to eliminate "subtle inaccuracies and POV-pushing." What they are doing is FREEZING whatever agendas have been pushed- at a point where they are comfortable with the agendas. Do you really think that corporations are free of bias? They still happen to be made up of people, like us- go back and look at some older editions of Brittanica if you really feel that having a small group of editors vet the content of an encyclopedia guarantees a better and more accurate listing. Fox News is a major corporation, respected by many- and yet it is generally believed that there is POV pushing on the network (and yes, there is POV pushing in the Liberal direction on certain other networks- I want to be equal-opportunity here)- do you honestly believe that their having "oversight" has eliminated the issues you claim Veropedia will solve? How about the agenda and POV-pushing done in text books across america, from both sides of the political spectrum? As a teacher, are you really so naive to think that there are any guarantees in anything that's written and presented as "fact?"
The truth is, Wikipedia is far BETTER positioned to solve these problems than Veropedia, for the simple fact that every article is an ongoing project. If you see something that you feel is not neutral, or is not accurate- fix it. It's called "being bold." And others will do the same to you, back and forth, until a consensus brings the article as close to "final" as it might ever get. It's called "consensus"- you know, the founding principle of Wikipedia. Simply organizing a group and giving it a name does not make the group any more functional, fair, or accurate than the Wikipedia community in general- especially since the company doesn't actually reveal the "experts" it claims to consult.
All of which is an argument for or against Veropedia (sorry,Black Kite, and Sagacious, that's the argument YOU started), which really has no place here. The question is the CONTEST. And since nobody has responded to MY response to Danny's attmepts to "call me out" and ignore the most relevent points I made, I will reiterate my point here, at the bottom of the screen, where it might be noticed:
"I pointed out that this is a contest sponsored by a for-profit entity. I pointed out that the "improvement" of articles that said entity specifically would like to include on its site will financially benefit that entity. I believe- GFDL or not, Jimbo's intentions or not- that it is disingenuous, to say the least, that on the project page for this contest no actual mention of the sponsoring entity is made. That this clear financial relationship is not laid out.
In theory, I'm not opposed to contests. I'm not even oppposed to financial incentives as some people here are. Hell, I may even participate in the contest if I have the time. Make all the profit you want. Sponsor all the contests you want. But disguising your motivations is absolutely dishonest, and if it were done in any other kind of media, it would receive the same criticism laid out here. Political advertisements now must disclose who is paying for them (so that we might determine the potential motives and biases behind them). Corporate sponsored contests that seek to profit from creators' work must fully disclose it (there have been contests in the past, for example, asking users to submit their own video commercials, toy designs, names, etc- and for damn sure every one of them outlines in full what's going to happen with those creations once the "winner" has been selected). All I am asking for at the moment is a similar level of honesty and care from Veropedia." ChrisStansfield Contribs 19:46, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
If you want to argue that "Sponsered by Veropedia!" and "Veropedia reproduces Wikipedia content in a for profit way, and benefits from Wikipedia having top quality articles!" in big bold letters, I suspect its the anti-Veropedia crowd that'd object. Something like "this is a free ad, and it'd be even more of a free ad if we advertised who's doing this!". I don't think those of us who're actually trying to make the encyclopaedia better would mind. WilyD 19:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I can't do the thinking for the "anti-Veropedia" crowd, and frankly my dear, I don't give a damn. I'm far more concerned with ethics than I am with erasing the apparent existence of the company from the records (which disturbingly seems to be what Veropedia itself is intent on doing, based on its attempts to avoid having an article about its company on the site.) There are certainly ways to ethically alert people about the beneficiaries of the contest in a legal, non-POV way that would not constitute an endorsement of the company itself. ChrisStansfield Contribs 21:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
I'll just reply to the Veropedia point; no, Chris, I'm not naive enough to believe that all the Veropedia articles will be "frozen" in a non-POV state - at the moment. The idea is that they will be vetted after being ported over; at the moment Vero is more interested in the articles being of good quality and sourced correctly. The more controversial articles probably won't get ported over at all - only the core articles are needed - it shouldn't be too difficult to establish NPOV versions of those. And once they are established, the very real problems of edit-warring and POV-pushing are effectively eliminated. And yes, I agree there can be inherent bias in any supposedly "neutral" information source. That's life. But we can try to minimise the effects. BLACKKITE 20:03, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Except, of course, that Matt Lewis already pointed out the example of the "Jerusalem" article. If you think it's not "too difficult to establish NPOV versions of core article" (my slight paraphrase), then you apparently know how to settle thousands of years of conflict regarding how history, science, and biography should be presented- and I thank you for that and hope you'll share your secrets. Even minor "core" articles like "Aaron Sorkin" (which again shows how ludicrous Veropedia is in its aim to be a more reputable version of Wikipedia) have plenty of discussion as to what should be included (like the easily sourced commentary about him working out his personal issues in "Studio 60." Now see how NPOV Veropedia manages to freeze articles about current world conflicts, scientific disputes like evolution and global warming, and political bios. You've also ignored my point that Veropedia claims to employ "experts" but doesn't actually reveal who the so-called experts are, and you've, YET AGAIN, ignored my point about the ethics of a "contest" not revealing its sponsors, in order to focus on defending the Veriopedia entity itself. ChrisStansfield Contribs 21:43, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Woah, stop right there. Vero is still in Beta, you know? That's a work in progress with a very, very long way to go - it's no way is that a "finished version", and shouldn't be taken as such. And yes, I have ignored your ethics issue, because it's not my place to speak for Veropedia on that point. With that, I'm going to recuse from this conversation as well to go and edit the encyclopedia, as we're going round in circles to no apparent advantage.BLACKKITE 21:50, 3 December 2007 (UTC)
Minimising bias - I like the sound of that. ChrisStansfield's news network analogy is a great one. Living in the UK I have less juicy examples. When I really do think 'American', the idea of Veropedia gets even worse! Clip's from Fox News really do show another scary world to us - gawd just imagine if Veropedia got like that! We need to look at guidelines here - to stop Veropedia leaching off the inside of Wikipedia like this. I'm reading up on Wikipedia's rules and regs (I know that others are too) - if no one does it first, I'll be suggesting 'something' at some point soon. This is a good place to get the ball going as such a broad spectrum of people are here! --Matt Lewis 21:25, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Irony

It's ironic that the effort spent to produce the 214+ kilobytes of text on this talk page could have gone into writing, editing, and improving encyclopedia article. Go figure. Earthdirt 18:12, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

Go read. --Matt Lewis 18:27, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

A very pithy comment, Earthdirt, but believe it or not, some of us have the time and wherewithal to edit AND try to participate in community processes. Your argument is akin to, "All of the time you're spending on doing inventory in your store could have been used selling to customers." It's specious. ChrisStansfield Contribs 19:56, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

As much as I would love to continue watching this unfold, the REAL irony is that Wikipedia announced (in the New York Times) that they will begin paying for content. The going rate is $40 per illustration. So all of your concerns that somehow this contest will produce lesser quality work is somehow not the case for Wikipedia-paid content? Illustrations that can't be edited and paid for by Wikipedia are somehow different from articles that are entered into the contest with Veropedia? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lulutic (talk • contribs) 22:16, 3 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not saying Wikipedia's illustration buying is necessarily ideal, but it's structure is totally different to the Veropedia competion. Presumably, Wikipedia will only pay for each needed and acceptable illustration, and Wikipedia people will presumably pick them. This contest of a thousand articles is judged by 3 self-interested people, and anyone can enter it - each making substantive edits to Wikipedia in the process! (the very reason for the competition). I personally think that poor edits can be made if people are encouraged to make edits when and where they normally wouldn't make them! Same with the judgements on them. Veropedia, in any scenario, mainly want to increase their presence, and hurry Wikipedia along. With the illustration-buying example, only quality illustrations will be bought by Wikipedia - nothing poor quality should enter the equation.
Veropedia want an edit frenzy! Most people here do seem to be edit obsessives - as if it's some kind of crime not to be constantly making them. Makes no sense to me. What's is all this hurry with Wikipedia? It gets donations. It's supposedly non-profit. What's the great rush? It's done incredibly well - not embarrassingly badly, if you ask me. I thought most people recognised that - and that we have always accepted the imperfections will take ages to be (hopefully) ironed out. Why now the sudden sense of horror at how bad Wikipedia is? It's all Advopedia (ahem, Veropedia) rhetoric if you ask me.
Veropedia is a private company, advertising via a competition inside Wikipeida to promote itself, and to get Wikipedians to improve articles (essentially for free) which it is planning to freeze and profit from. Wikipedia are paying out as thay have too few illustrations - and they'll surely only be paying for each suitable ones! There will still be issues with it though. Wasn't the paid-for Illustrations plan originally based on money from a donator? Is it his money? There could be an issue there. And will Wikipedia be freezing the illustrations? If so, I can see some problems arising there too - certainly on an article-specific basis at some point. People will also no-doubt point out that the WMF do seem to be getting into using money more and more, especially when alternative solutions could be found. That's another argument though! --Matt Lewis 00:21, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Hey, the contest ad seems to have been removed from the watchlist, correct? Amit@Talk 10:17, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Someone removed it a couple of days ago - I can't remember who now. The page is unprotected too (that was Tango, I think). Who did remove it fro the watchlist? I can't find his/her comment on it now (not sure it was in here).
We clearly have admins with starkly differing views on this - and differing actions too. That is no good for Wikipedia, so clearly we must have guidelines. Matt Lewis 12:37, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
See http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Watchlist-details&action=history for details of the removal. It was User:Gentgeen that removed it, then User:John Reaves reverted (with a pityful reason), and Gentgeen reverted it back. Then it seems to have stuck. And yes, it was me that unprotected this page - I asked above and no-one objected. --Tango 13:42, 4 December 2007 (UTC)
Ok then I guess everything's fine now... conflict over, hehe :D Amit@Talk 14:43, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Reason the competition advert was removed from the watchlist

"Using the Wikimedia Foundation's equipment, bandwidth, and unique access to our users to subsidize the cost of advertising their contest is against the principles of the foundation."

This was Gentgeen's short comment after removing the advert from the watchlist. He also agreed with someone that it looked like an official WMF event. It was on the Village Pump policy pages. Looking back it stikes me as a particularly well-crafted sentence. --Matt Lewis (talk) 22:04, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

I'm not sure that's really fair. The contest is intended to help Wikipedia (yes, by extension, it helps re-users of the content, which includes the people organising it, but the direct effect of the contest is [intended to be] to improve Wikipedia itself), so it seems appropriate for it to be on Wikipedia. My only concern is that, being unofficial (both in terms of WMF and community approval), it should not be in the Wikipedia namespace, nor should it be advertised on watchlists. I would have no problem with it were it in the User namespace, even if it were linked to (maybe even redirected to, if I'm feeling generous) from the Wikipedia namespace. --Tango (talk) 22:13, 4 December 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Who won?

I don't recall seeing who the winner was. Any update? AgneCheese/Wine 05:06, 20 January 2008 (UTC)

We still haven't picked the winner. I'm one of the judges, and so you can at least partly blame me, but it's been many hours of work to check hundreds of diffs. Having said that, I've been blown away by the amount of quality work that's been done, so it's been one of the most pleasurable tasks I've ever had on Wikipedia. This has really had a big impact on many important articles. I'm pretty much finished now reviewing, and hopefully we can get the process moved forward. Watch this space! Walkerma (talk) 05:21, 20 January 2008 (UTC)
So, who won?Randomblue (talk) 20:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
common sense, I think.--Matt Lewis (talk) 20:15, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
We have a shortlist of around 15, and we're now picking the best five from that right now. Some of the entries are spectacular! Walkerma (talk) 21:09, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
Oh stop flattering me ;) Sherurcij (Speaker for the Dead) 00:15, 27 February 2008 (UTC)
So, who won?Earthdirt (talk) 17:05, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
Who cares. -- Taku (talk) 22:57, 10 March 2008 (UTC)
I've got my top five, and I've contacted Danny again, but I haven't heard back yet. Walkerma (talk) 03:35, 12 March 2008 (UTC)
Have you heard about him yet? The whole thing is quite unfair for those who participated if the proposers doesn't actually follow the proposal. Randomblue (talk) 16:41, 13 May 2008 (UTC)
It's a joke at this point. In the future, don't run contests unless you set a timeline for judging and stick to it.--Father Goose (talk) 00:09, 14 May 2008 (UTC)
It may have just been an advertisement for Veropedia [3], said I, apparently lacking enough good faith. –Outriggr § 01:13, 14 May 2008 (UTC)