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This is the English Wikipedia discussion page assigned to Thomas H. Larsen. Please assume good faith, remain neutral, and stay civil; if everyone abides by this code of conduct, discussions will be more fruitful.
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Note: At this time, I am not very active on Wikipedia, typically editing for only one or two hours per week. Therefore, I may take four or more days to respond to your messages. I apologise for any inconvenience this may cause, and I hope to resume active editing within a reasonable time frame.
[edit] Signpost updated for January 28th, 2008.
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[edit] Signpost updated for February 4th, 2008.
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[edit] Wikipedia:Reviewing
This project has been proposed for deletion at Wikipedia:Miscellany for deletion#Wikipedia:Reviewing, not by me. I thought you should be aware of this. --Bduke (talk) 01:06, 9 February 2008 (UTC)
- At this point, I don't think there is much doubt that the project will be deleted. But I don't think anyone would object to a this being a task force or subproject under Wikipedia:WikiProject Fact and Reference Check, with a less restrictive approach: set some criteria (e.g., 1000 edits or more) for "experienced editors" to be listed as a "reviewer"; place a note on an article talk page when it has been reviewed, etc.
- The real challenge, as with any WikiProject, is recruiting and retaining editors, and dealing with the natural attrition as editors leave Wikipedia entirely, temporarily or permanently. In addition, if you want to recruit experts to help on the WikiProject, that's yet another challenge.
- If you want to try this project again, organized in a way that isn't going to upset the Wikipedia community, feel free to drop me a note; I'll be happy to offer suggestions. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 13:25, 11 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Page move
I've moved User:Thomas H. Larsen/Yuser, on fighting linkspam to your userspace for safekeeping.
The Transhumanist 02:57, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
[edit] Grand unified reviewing
You might want to check out WP:CRW, as it may already be a suitable forum for the kind of discussion you want to have. Geometry guy 09:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- CRW focuses on a lot of issues, though. At this time I think it is more important to focus on one or two really important concerns. On the other hand, I'll try to participate in both the GURD and the CRW, hoping that something happens soon. Cheers. — Thomas H. Larsen 09:22, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- No problem. Although the scope of the CRW is quite broad, it does try to focus on one topic at the time. At the moment there is a lull in activity there, and it is probably time to start a new topic. A topic along the lines suggested by GURD is one possibility. Geometry guy 18:16, 14 February 2008 (UTC)
- I'd second that. You have a lot to contribute to CRW, which has been a very productive venue for these types of issue. Walkerma (talk) 04:15, 17 February 2008 (UTC)
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My personal opinion is that you're getting closer to something that could be valuable for Wikipedia, but haven't gotten there yet. The basic problem (and I think the second comment on the talk/discussi is along this line) is your statement that "I propose that Wikipedia:Peer review be moved to Wikipedia:Technical review. There problem is that (a) editors see peer reviews as including a review of facts/accuracy/content, and (b) to the extent that peer reviews don't include such a review, the solution is to expand peer review, not split it in two.
The larger issue is exactly how you see a separate factual/accuracy/content review bringing new resources to bear on the problem. Whether reviews are split into two parts or not, the issue still is to (a) interest editors in participating in the review(s), and (b) trying to have (hoping that) some of those editors have technical expertise. Simply opening up a new page in Wikipedia that (somehow) is "expert-friendly" (my words) isn't going to actually make something happen.
Having started out so negatively, let me offer some thoughts on what would help Wikipedia articles. If you check the Editor's index under the topic "Experts", you'll see that there is an acknowledged problem of finding (and retaining) expert editors, but no solution in place. Changing your proposal to something like Wikipedia:Expert review, limiting it to articles where expertise is clearly critical [math and hard(er) sciences, not history or biography or current culture), and then - the rub - actively recruiting experts in those limited areas would (in my opinion) be invaluable. And something not yet done. (Billing this as "expert review" takes it out of competition with all existing reviews, which are essentially "peer" reviews - reviews by editors who have an interest in an area, but where the area either requires limite special expertise or the editors typically are amateurs, not professionals.)
Which brings us to the crux of the matter - finding experts. A couple of thoughts come to mind - looking inside (userboxes, and google searches of user pages), and looking outside - actively soliciting participation by credentialed experts and professional organizations. For the latter, it would make sense to try to get a group of editors to act as intermediaries - making the contacts, and shielding experts from having to learn wiki markup.
Finally, there is the mechanism by which articles get nominated for factual review. I think it's a mistake to model this after existing peer review processes, where what enters the pipeline is what interested editors bring up. Rather, I think expert review ought to be based on the experts that are available, with the Wikipedia editor or editors working in a particular area (say, chemistry) deciding what should be looked at next. Obviously there is a possibility of heavy overlap with existing WikiProjects; that's yet another issue that needs to be thought through. -- John Broughton (♫♫) 16:35, 23 February 2008 (UTC)
- Thanks John for your comprehensive comments, and I must apologise for not responding sooner.
- In an ideal world, "peer review" would cover factual accuracy and coverage, and a "proofreading" project would cover style, grammar, capitalisation, punctuation, etc. However, this isn't an ideal world. Ultimately, any attempt at trying to make Wikipedia:Peer review review articles factually as well as technically would very likely result in a compromise unsatisfying to both "sides" (not that there are sides, of course). In addition, the differences in how "peer review" operates and factual review would have to operate in order to successfully perform its purpose in an effective and efficient manner are not easily compatible, resulting in another compromise should "peer review" be modified to encompass factual review and causing disadvantage to both parts of the system.
- My response to the issue of editor participation would be to actively reach out and encourage people to participate, a tactic that is oft-neglected, in my opinion, by many WikiProjects.
- You seem to be suggesting a more expert-orientated review (factual review is open to all editors, but provides mechanisms for editors to suit themselves to content they know most about such as classification and per-section-per-article reviews). In the future I definitely see a need for an expert review system, but I think both of us understand that such a procedure would likely be (a) controversial (most projects are open to all editors, not just to experts), and (b) difficult to implement, for the very reasons you stated — finding and engaging experts.
- I don't think finding experts is so difficult, but engaging them — drawing them in, encouraging them to participate — is another issue altogether. Most experts have very little time on their hands, and I can't imagine many expert editors — let alone those who are not yet editors — having the time or energy to spend, say, a minimum of four or five hours factually reviewing a Wikipedia article.
- Of course, there's always the possibility of the Wikimedia Foundation paying experts to review articles, but (a) I doubt this could be funded for a prolonged period, (b) questions would be raised about the "priority", so to speak, of unpaid normal editors vs. paid expert reviewers, and create an "us vs. them" culture, and (c) many editors would jump up and down and complain about the unfairness, conflict of interest, and "unethical aspect" of the whole thing — and what if other Wikimedia Foundation projects wanted to implement a money-funded-expert-review system? Not only that, there are potential legal concerns involved wherever money is involved. So while it would be a good way to get experts actively involved in checking articles, it would not be swallowed easily by the larger part of the community, and to an extent I associate myself with that part of the community.
- This said, I believe that an expert review system will likely be feasible in the future, but I'd say that it would need to be implemented one or two years down the track from now. Actually, a group of people have to get together in "real life" and discuss this issue of expert review; if I have the opportunity to attend a meetup or Wikimania at some stage, I would likely lead a discussion along these lines.
- I do recognise that factual review has a number of obstacles in its path, and I hope that these obstacles may be overcome. For example, factual review aims to check articles for (a) correctness (inelegantly summed up as verifiability, neutrality, and non-original-research), and (b) coverage. As someone pointed out to me a little while ago, verifying that sources cited in articles not only exist but actually support claims made in articles requires being able to read the cited source, which in turn requires increasing expertise as the technicality of the source increases; therefore, checking sources cited in articles may not be practical for factual review. In the future I aim to introduce a kind of "editors-to-resources" list that permits editors with access to reliable, reputable resources (not only print and Internet resources, but also resources such as libraries, universities, etc.) to place their username and the names of the resources on the list so that they may be contacted should a citation need to be checked; this potentially has uses beyond factual review, and could serve a general function in itself, so I would probably introduce it separately of factual review.
- Thanks again for your comments, and I wish you all the best. — Thomas H. Larsen 07:58, 20 March 2008 (UTC)
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