Submitted by Thibbs
As editors we've all seen it before. The Wikipedia routine begins with the usual rush of excited anticipation, the optional cup of coffee, and a quick check of the Wikipedia watchlist. But this time something's different. Instead of the normal handful of articles, you see that your watchlist is lit up with edited articles. Someone has been making mass edits. The reasons vary: sometimes it's a bot fixing double redirect, sometimes it's a WikiGnome using AWB or Twinkle to remove deprecated parameters, and sometimes (rarely) it's an editor who has identified a problem that must be fixed manually. Such is the case with the refminer. Swooping through articles at a fast pace, sprinkling smallish references and citations nearly as fast as a magazine can be read through, the refminer is an unusual breed of WikiGnome and one that has escaped attention for too long. In this quarter's feature we will be discussing this brand of editing, we will be looking at what motivates those who engage in it, and we will be analyzing the benefits it creates and the pitfalls that it is subject to. Although there are doubtless other model editors who have assisted the project in this way, we will also be spotlighting the efforts of User:BOZ and User:Ylee who have made extraordinary efforts in this editing style. Finally we will address how you can help.
So what really is refmining? Briefly it is the act of rooting through entire magazines, reading every article, and summarizing the reception for every game contained therein - later to be inserted into their respective Wikipedia articles. Some refminers prefer to add these reception blurbs as they read, others may prefer to write them up in digest form and then insert them en masse. The end result is the same: expanded reception sections on a wide range of articles from a single source and from a specific time-frame. But isn't this just " the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor"? Couldn't this be viewed as a form of promotion via REFSPAM? The answer is no. Refspam is the " illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes or references" and in practice it is clear that Refmining is anything but promotional. As we will see in discussions with the editors who had independently adopted this sourcing strategy, the overwhelming bulk of the source material they used came from currently defunct video game magazines. Well then is this refmining carried out for the purpose of "verify[ing] article content and help[ing] [to] build the encyclopedia"? Yes and no. While it can certainly be used to verify pre-existing content, in practice this is actually rather rare. A much more common effect of refmining is the establishment of Notability for an article which may have previously only had non-RS sources or which may have been completely devoid of a reference section and/or sources. while not spelled out explicitly in WP:REFSPAM, the establishment of notability in this way does help "to build the encyclopedia", and along the way it provides a number of additional side effects which we will discuss next.
As mentioned just above, the primary benefit of refmining is the establishment of notability in articles that are lacking proper sourcing. Does the addition of a single reception summary alone confer sufficient evidence of notability to save an undersourced article from AfD? Not necessarily. The minimum threshold for the establishment of notability is coverage in "multiple sources", so a single source on its own will not be sufficient. Furthermore the other elements of WP:VG's essential content may need to be rewritten or written in the first place in order for the article to survive a proposed merge. But if the newly added reference is the second or third reliable source used in an article then it does establish that the topic of the article meets the notability threshold for inclusion. When no reception section had previously existed, it provides the start of one of WP:VG's elements of essential content. In many ways refmining can be seen to "save" articles from removal by deletion or merger. Even in a very summary form, the citation can also act as a guide for later editors wishing to expand the article. For topics where little information is available, simply having a ready citation to track down for a full article on the topic can be immensely helpful. And there are yet more benefits. Depending on which magazines are used, a refminer can be essential in the promotion of broad coverage and the reduction of POV. Looking to the example of Users BOZ and Ylee, we see great examples of the expansion from modern to contemporary coverage, and from modern platforms to older platforms. The reality of sourcing within the article of WP:VG is that the majority of references are to born-digital materials like websites, with only occasional reference to digitized materials with URLs like the scanned books from Google Books. The result for older topics is systemic bias in the form of recentism. Refmining from older materials as has been practiced by BOZ and Ylee helps promote Wikipedia's Neutrality pillar. Likewise, refmining from non-English magazine sources (as the author of this article endeavored to do in May 2012 with Famitsu magazine) can work to reduce systemic Anglocentrism. With the benefits now spelled out, we turn to BOZ and Ylee to get their perspective on the practice.
Trends emerge when one looks through any serious number of video game articles. While the use of the elements of essential content (plot, gameplay, development, reception, etc.) are common throughout the articles due to their inclusion in the MOS, the fingerprints of specific contributors will also be recognized if one knows how to look. It is no coincidence that reviews from magazines like Dragon and Computer & Video Games can be found in large numbers of articles (often as the only reception references). These citations are quite often the work of editors like our own BOZ and Ylee. Let's see what they have to say for themselves.
WP:VG Newsletter - Approximately when did you first start refmining? Any idea how many articles you've reffed this way?
WP:VG Newsletter - Which sources(s) have you gone through in this manner? Any future plans?
WP:VG Newsletter - How do you select the magazine you are going to refmine?
WP:VG Newsletter - What inspired you to begin this mission?
WP:VG Newsletter - Where do you go to get access to these magazines? Are they personally owned?
WP:VG Newsletter - Do you cover all articles in each magazine or only those that interest you?
WP:VG Newsletter - Do you cover entire runs of these magazines or only limited runs?
WP:VG Newsletter - What do you do when you encounter a topic for which there is no Wikipedia article yet?
WP:VG Newsletter - Have you encountered any problems while doing this? Difficult editors? Other misunderstandings?
WP:VG Newsletter - Anything else you want to say about the subject?
Well the first and most obvious answer to the question is that you can become a refminer yourself. As noted above, refmining is intended to be non-promotional in nature. The sources are often out of print and the inclusion of these sources in an article in no way prevents the inclusion of additional and even contrary sources. However intentions alone can't provide full NPOV coverage. When an article's reception section only contains one review from a single source then (until further sources are added) this source represents 100% of the reception. In this sense additional refminers adding reception to articles can dramatically improve the neutrality of an article. Quick and easy examples of this can be seen at the reception sections for Dark Seed and A-Train where all or the majority of the sources were added via the refmining work of BOZ, Ylee, and this article's author.
So where can an editor gain access to unmined magazines? Short of purchasing magazines to mine, how can someone with time on their hands help in this way? There are a variety of free resources available on the internet as well as linked through Wikipedia. Perhaps the best source for defunct magazines is the Internet Archive (at archive.org). Reliable video game sources can be obtained here quite simply in both print (e.g. here, here, and here) and audio-visual (e.g. here) formats. Another valuable resource is WP:VG's own Online Print Archive and sections of WP:VG's Reference Library (e.g. WP:VG/RL#Online resources). From most of these locations a dedicated refminer can obtain open source or freely hosted copies of reliable source material covering a range of video games and ripe for mining. Locating magazines on the internet is relatively simple and much like looking through a high school yearbook it can be a real pleasure for a nostalgic retrogamer to wade through review after review of old friends. (NB: OK maybe the nostalgia for high school is a bit revisionist, but hopefully you see my point). The practice of refmining is a sound one and the more that participate in it the more articles will be saved and the more neutral and well-rounded Wikipedia's coverage will become in a short period of time. The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter salutes the refminer, and we wish to thank BOZ and Ylee for their generous contributions.
Submitted by Thibbs
As editors we've all seen it before. The Wikipedia routine begins with the usual rush of excited anticipation, the optional cup of coffee, and a quick check of the Wikipedia watchlist. But this time something's different. Instead of the normal handful of articles, you see that your watchlist is lit up with edited articles. Someone has been making mass edits. The reasons vary: sometimes it's a bot fixing double redirect, sometimes it's a WikiGnome using AWB or Twinkle to remove deprecated parameters, and sometimes (rarely) it's an editor who has identified a problem that must be fixed manually. Such is the case with the refminer. Swooping through articles at a fast pace, sprinkling smallish references and citations nearly as fast as a magazine can be read through, the refminer is an unusual breed of WikiGnome and one that has escaped attention for too long. In this quarter's feature we will be discussing this brand of editing, we will be looking at what motivates those who engage in it, and we will be analyzing the benefits it creates and the pitfalls that it is subject to. Although there are doubtless other model editors who have assisted the project in this way, we will also be spotlighting the efforts of User:BOZ and User:Ylee who have made extraordinary efforts in this editing style. Finally we will address how you can help.
So what really is refmining? Briefly it is the act of rooting through entire magazines, reading every article, and summarizing the reception for every game contained therein - later to be inserted into their respective Wikipedia articles. Some refminers prefer to add these reception blurbs as they read, others may prefer to write them up in digest form and then insert them en masse. The end result is the same: expanded reception sections on a wide range of articles from a single source and from a specific time-frame. But isn't this just " the repeated insertion of a particular citation or reference in multiple articles by a single contributor"? Couldn't this be viewed as a form of promotion via REFSPAM? The answer is no. Refspam is the " illegitimate or improper use of citations, footnotes or references" and in practice it is clear that Refmining is anything but promotional. As we will see in discussions with the editors who had independently adopted this sourcing strategy, the overwhelming bulk of the source material they used came from currently defunct video game magazines. Well then is this refmining carried out for the purpose of "verify[ing] article content and help[ing] [to] build the encyclopedia"? Yes and no. While it can certainly be used to verify pre-existing content, in practice this is actually rather rare. A much more common effect of refmining is the establishment of Notability for an article which may have previously only had non-RS sources or which may have been completely devoid of a reference section and/or sources. while not spelled out explicitly in WP:REFSPAM, the establishment of notability in this way does help "to build the encyclopedia", and along the way it provides a number of additional side effects which we will discuss next.
As mentioned just above, the primary benefit of refmining is the establishment of notability in articles that are lacking proper sourcing. Does the addition of a single reception summary alone confer sufficient evidence of notability to save an undersourced article from AfD? Not necessarily. The minimum threshold for the establishment of notability is coverage in "multiple sources", so a single source on its own will not be sufficient. Furthermore the other elements of WP:VG's essential content may need to be rewritten or written in the first place in order for the article to survive a proposed merge. But if the newly added reference is the second or third reliable source used in an article then it does establish that the topic of the article meets the notability threshold for inclusion. When no reception section had previously existed, it provides the start of one of WP:VG's elements of essential content. In many ways refmining can be seen to "save" articles from removal by deletion or merger. Even in a very summary form, the citation can also act as a guide for later editors wishing to expand the article. For topics where little information is available, simply having a ready citation to track down for a full article on the topic can be immensely helpful. And there are yet more benefits. Depending on which magazines are used, a refminer can be essential in the promotion of broad coverage and the reduction of POV. Looking to the example of Users BOZ and Ylee, we see great examples of the expansion from modern to contemporary coverage, and from modern platforms to older platforms. The reality of sourcing within the article of WP:VG is that the majority of references are to born-digital materials like websites, with only occasional reference to digitized materials with URLs like the scanned books from Google Books. The result for older topics is systemic bias in the form of recentism. Refmining from older materials as has been practiced by BOZ and Ylee helps promote Wikipedia's Neutrality pillar. Likewise, refmining from non-English magazine sources (as the author of this article endeavored to do in May 2012 with Famitsu magazine) can work to reduce systemic Anglocentrism. With the benefits now spelled out, we turn to BOZ and Ylee to get their perspective on the practice.
Trends emerge when one looks through any serious number of video game articles. While the use of the elements of essential content (plot, gameplay, development, reception, etc.) are common throughout the articles due to their inclusion in the MOS, the fingerprints of specific contributors will also be recognized if one knows how to look. It is no coincidence that reviews from magazines like Dragon and Computer & Video Games can be found in large numbers of articles (often as the only reception references). These citations are quite often the work of editors like our own BOZ and Ylee. Let's see what they have to say for themselves.
WP:VG Newsletter - Approximately when did you first start refmining? Any idea how many articles you've reffed this way?
WP:VG Newsletter - Which sources(s) have you gone through in this manner? Any future plans?
WP:VG Newsletter - How do you select the magazine you are going to refmine?
WP:VG Newsletter - What inspired you to begin this mission?
WP:VG Newsletter - Where do you go to get access to these magazines? Are they personally owned?
WP:VG Newsletter - Do you cover all articles in each magazine or only those that interest you?
WP:VG Newsletter - Do you cover entire runs of these magazines or only limited runs?
WP:VG Newsletter - What do you do when you encounter a topic for which there is no Wikipedia article yet?
WP:VG Newsletter - Have you encountered any problems while doing this? Difficult editors? Other misunderstandings?
WP:VG Newsletter - Anything else you want to say about the subject?
Well the first and most obvious answer to the question is that you can become a refminer yourself. As noted above, refmining is intended to be non-promotional in nature. The sources are often out of print and the inclusion of these sources in an article in no way prevents the inclusion of additional and even contrary sources. However intentions alone can't provide full NPOV coverage. When an article's reception section only contains one review from a single source then (until further sources are added) this source represents 100% of the reception. In this sense additional refminers adding reception to articles can dramatically improve the neutrality of an article. Quick and easy examples of this can be seen at the reception sections for Dark Seed and A-Train where all or the majority of the sources were added via the refmining work of BOZ, Ylee, and this article's author.
So where can an editor gain access to unmined magazines? Short of purchasing magazines to mine, how can someone with time on their hands help in this way? There are a variety of free resources available on the internet as well as linked through Wikipedia. Perhaps the best source for defunct magazines is the Internet Archive (at archive.org). Reliable video game sources can be obtained here quite simply in both print (e.g. here, here, and here) and audio-visual (e.g. here) formats. Another valuable resource is WP:VG's own Online Print Archive and sections of WP:VG's Reference Library (e.g. WP:VG/RL#Online resources). From most of these locations a dedicated refminer can obtain open source or freely hosted copies of reliable source material covering a range of video games and ripe for mining. Locating magazines on the internet is relatively simple and much like looking through a high school yearbook it can be a real pleasure for a nostalgic retrogamer to wade through review after review of old friends. (NB: OK maybe the nostalgia for high school is a bit revisionist, but hopefully you see my point). The practice of refmining is a sound one and the more that participate in it the more articles will be saved and the more neutral and well-rounded Wikipedia's coverage will become in a short period of time. The WikiProject Video Games Newsletter salutes the refminer, and we wish to thank BOZ and Ylee for their generous contributions.
YES! I am a refminer and so can you! :-D See also [1], [2], [3], and [4]. All hail the mighty IGN. Wow, what is this comment setup? — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 09:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC)
YES! I am a refminer and so can you! :-D See also [1], [2], [3], and [4]. All hail the mighty IGN. Wow, what is this comment setup? — Smuckola (Email) (Talk) 09:36, 20 January 2015 (UTC) reply