![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
This page is a terrible contribution to the discussion of the underlying issues.
I feel I could contribute both on "data integrity on Wikidata" and "reliability of English Wikipedia content", and the relationship between those two issues. But I have no intention of doing so here. I would actually be glad to have Wikipedia:Wikidata/2017 State of affairs deleted. The personal attacks on this page could be deleted under talk page guidelines.
The scope of the subpage title has shown itself, pretty much, to be too broad. We can surely do better than this. Charles Matthews ( talk) 12:19, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, I suggest a "refactoring" of the page would be beneficial. You do realise that some of the discussion above is "pot-kettle"?
I have been working on Wikidata since 2014, on projects which have nothing to do with infoboxes. I know certain benefits have arisen, for the English Wikipedia (and not only that one). I would say your comment above about limiting Wikidata to the indexing function (interwiki) is not really accurate. I think the verifiability issue on Wikidata is important, but not as simple as is sometimes implied.
I'm concerned that you say the page "will be used". As you say, in fact, it reflects mainly that there are divisive arguments used here, about Wikidata. It is currently fashionable to force the issue in divisive areas of politics: and we don't see the argument from factual evidence getting much credence there.
WP:VOTE, full title Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion, makes the point in its nutshell: "Some decisions on Wikipedia are not made by popular vote, but rather through discussions to achieve consensus. Polling is only meant to facilitate discussion, and should be used with care." I am arguing for care, given that this Talk page shows not the slightest sign of emerging consensus. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:40, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Let's take the usability discussion, for example. How could that be made "factual"? It is more suitable for a separate page, I would say.
I was actually thinking yesterday about the "Richard Burton's wives" issue you raised, because I was adding education histories to Wikidata items about people, and it is annoying if the order doesn't follow chronology. For Burton, you are actually "supposed" to add a "start time" qualifier in the "spouse" statements; and I would say that you should reference it. That is, the marriages should come at least with dates, if we are going to attach significance to any ordering at all. It is certainly is troublesome. if the marriages are out of order, for the human reader. You can only fix it by deleting and retyping. But actually, with the dates, the system could fix that. This doesn't yet happen in the maintenance of Wikidata, but clearly it could.
This sort of thing strikes a newcomer as a usability issue. Wikidata statements are added to the bottom, sort of - there is a division into substantive statements, and identifiers; and there is a setting in Preferences to display the substantive statements in a standard order.
So those are some facts, and explanations. Do you agree that such matters deserve a page of their own? Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:26, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Sorry – "they will never decide whether we (the broader community) trust Wikidata enough ..." – did you get elected to office here? I feel this kind of rhetoric is misplaced. Maybe half a year of Brexit does that to people.
I would say, with the best will in the world, that what is needed is a "Wikidata FAQ for Wikipedians". And I think the effort to get one by choosing this particular route in project space has probably failed. Which is why the page should be deleted, or edited very seriously.
But anyway, isn't a FAQ what we are talking about? Charles Matthews ( talk) 15:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
How about the ultimate point being the Wikipedia mission statement? Say as on q:Jimmy Wales. Or the WMF statement of purpose: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." As far as I'm concerned, the latter has quite a lot to do with Wikidata.
How about addressing my point on the need to build consensus, per the important WP:VOTE essay, rather than laying down sweeping preconditions?
I apologise, as a UK citizen, for everything about Brexit. I did think you might include under "general criticism of edits or something similar" a criticism of tone.
I do think, if you will try not to take this as a personal attack, that the non-specific use of "we", as if representing a constituency, was not helpful. It anyway gives me a clue as to why this debate is not going well. Normally editors here speak for themselves. Charles Matthews ( talk) 16:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
OK then, it is better if the opposite of "us" is not "not one of us". Let's try for some consensus starting from GIGO. That's an important principle. So is the principle that one has to live in the real world. I find it interesting to draw a parallel with Commons. The metadata on Commons is, from some points of view, in a bad way: it can be 10 years old. It is essentially never footnoted. There are mistakes made here with images misidentified, so being placed incorrectly in articles. More worrying, if quite rare, is that apparently good metadata from a GLAM is wrong: I know this happens. It is unlikely that in all cases independent, third-party referencing could be provided: we tend to accept the GLAM metadata as authoritative.
So, why do we accept the use of Commons images here routinely, instead of insisting that everything be uploaded here, and the metadata scrutinised? I would suggest this is not a matter of "trusting" Commons: because the mass uploading probably makes that (a) meaningless and (b) implausible. There could be plenty of photoshopped nonsense: copyvio is more of a concern. There are two things acting in the other direction: Commons is very helpful in developing articles; and images, we feel, tend to provide internal evidence that we use in place of good metadata. "In the real world", don't we mainly just accept Commons on that basis?
To sum up: some of the arguments deployed in the case of "trusting" Wikidata, to adopt your term though I don't like it, can be seen in action here. One kind of argument would say "Wikidata is not very useful in developing articles or lists here". I don't agree, but we can have a rational discussion about that—and the WMF point I was introducing is that enWP and deWP are the hardest Wikipedias on which to make this argument, because they already have so many non-stub articles, the case being clearer on smaller wikis. The other part is clearly more interesting. It is rational to say that adding an image of a dog here and giving the caption "cat" is not really troubling: it is child-like vandalism and a small child could spot it. I won't try to complete the discussion here: I did say in my original posting I wasn't going to do that. But I think GIGO can be used in a nitpicky way, as well as sensibly. Charles Matthews ( talk) 18:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
insisting that everything be uploaded here, and the metadata scrutinised?is that it won't happen; hosting files here does not increase the scrutiny or quality in any way. The issue with Wikidata is that there is a widespread feeling that in information hosted on Wikidata there is less scrutiny and quality than information hosted here. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 19:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that was the "widespread impression" I said I wasn't going to address here.
Why I said that there was a pot-kettle argument in progress is that I don't think Wikipedians have the right approach, if they think denigration of Wikidata helps anything at all. For reasons User:Carcharoth alluded to above, amongst other things, Wikidata can be helpful with Wikipedia's quality of information, and has been criticised for its importation of data from Wikipedia. The part that might be taken seriously of all that is any issue of circular referencing.
Putting Wikipedia "factoids" into Wikidata where they are scrutinised ... well, honestly, if people can't see some good might come it, I don't want to spend much time on further exposition. Suffice it to say that machine-readable format could help with detecting anomalies. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
The page currently says "We can block links from being added to enwiki (through the blacklist); what if these links are inserted from Wikidata (in infoboxes or so)?" This is incorrect. We have a global blocklist that's also blocking edits on Wikidata. ChristianKl ( talk) 09:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I was going to edit the page, but then I noticed that is full of signatures. If the page is communal, shouldn't signatures be removed from it?-- Micru ( talk) 08:06, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Template:Authority control is added to more than 500,000 pages so far. At first glance, this seems like a good thing. I do see some problems with it though:
If Authority control is supposed to be useful, it should be curated and much more restrictive. The blind posting of every identifier someone adds to Wikidata just because it is about the same person, but not because it adds anything at all for readers, is something that would not be allowed in normal editing, but is somehow acceptable because it is Wikidata-driven. Worldcat seems to be the only one that is consistently useful, all others seem to be dependent on the subject (e.g. Deutsche Nationalbibliothek should only be added to people with some link to German or the German language) or perhaps even never useful at all. As it stands, the disadvantages seem to outweigh the advantages, which are rather small to begin with. Fram ( talk) 08:59, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"same indiscriminate list of... links to all 500,000 pages with the same template"This is not what the template does. Yet more bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"same indiscriminate list of... links to all 500,000 pages with the same template". Your "nothing but a Wikipedia page" is yet again FUD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
":it suggests that either some authorities control the page"More FUD. Read the help page to which that phrase is linked in every instance of the template (and note that the phrase, our use of it, the template, that link, and the linked help page, all pre-date Wikdiata).
"the blind posting of every identifier someone adds to Wikidata"this does not happen. More bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:51, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"for now"More FUD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I've just reverted an edit which made the bold - and, ironically, unsubstantiated - assertion that "Wikidata edits violate
WP:V and
WP:BLP."
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
20:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
"The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP.", which is still bunkum. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
"...you don't understand that"Bullshit.
"individuals who are strong proponents of using Wikidata information in articles do not seem to give any weight whatsoever to the editorial policies of the recipient projects"Also bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
"your rather extreme denial that there are BLP problems... you seem to be denying there are any BLP and WP:V problems". Really, Risker, we expect this kind of rubbish from the usual trolls on Wikipedia, but you used to know better. Shame on you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
"core policies of English Wikipedia. If you're not on board with them..."More bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:46, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I've tried three times to reduce my own post to bullet format without a signature, [11] [12] [13] but Pigsonthewing has reverted me. Could someone do that for me, please? It's my own post, so I should be allowed to write it as I want to; it's in the "disadvantages" section, where people were asked to list perceived disadvantages.
I would like it to say: "The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP." SarahSV (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
I've tried three times to reduce my own post to bullet format without a signature, [14] [15] [16] but Pigsonthewing has reverted me. Could someone do that for me, please? It's my own post, so I should be allowed to write it as I want to; it's in the "disadvantages" section, where people were asked to list perceived disadvantages.
I would like it to say: "The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP." SarahSV (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
And there goes the attempt to list the positions of both sides as they perceive them. Pigsonthewing, there are and will be "falsehoods" included in both the benefits and disadvantages section. If we only include things everyone can agree upon, the list will be very short and not useful at all. The (obviously badly failed) intention was to get to know the opinions, the perceived reality, which could then (here, or in a separate section) be discussed (politely, not by insulting everyone who dares to have a negative opinion of Wikidata). List what people see as the benefits and disadvantages of Wikipedia, not what the "real" benefits and disadvantages are, since no agreement on such a "real" list will ever be found. The "uses" and "discussions" sections should be factual (but there as well some Wikidata-promotors insist on adding "but it will improve" and "look what Wikidata can do" comments), but the disputed section not, as it can't be factual and useful at the same time. Fram ( talk) 08:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
"insulting everyone who dares to have a negative opinion of Wikidata"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Can we please all agree to let people add their own idea of the benefits to the benefits sections, and of the disadvantages to the disadvantages section, without anyone else interfering with it? If you prefer, we can ask that everyone signs their entries to make it clear that it is the position of that person and not an "official" enwiki position. If you want to discuss these entries on the main page, start a new section at the bottom; alternatively, dissect any entries you want here to your (polite) heart's delight. Fram ( talk) 08:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Pigsonthewing, please don't add incorrect "unsigned" templates. The comment above was mine, not SlimVirgins. Fram ( talk) 09:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I see that this false claim has been reinserted. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
We now have - despite my best efforts to make it actually say something factual and useful - an unsigned claim that " Wikidata edits/transclusions (where data is included from Wikidata without a reliable source being provided on ENWP) violate WP:V "
As previously explained, this is still utter bollocks.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
17:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
"you have yet to put forth a coherant argument other than 'its bullshit, fud' etc."Now that is simply a lie. Desisst. Having refuted the claim, it is not for me to do so again, every time you or Fram chose to ignore that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
From my experience with editing Wikidata and en-Wikipedia, there is an element of feeling that rather than pulling together sources to build an article, information is being broken down into data elements for the purpose of putting it back together again later (i.e. machine writing).
Anyone who has written an article on Wikipedia (by which I mean a properly sourced and reasonably standard-length article) knows that this involves accessing different sources of information and distilling it into words and presenting this information. The information present can be broken down into discrete elements and carefully marked up and filed away as data (this is best seen in the construction of infoboxes and the metadata associated with references), but there is a balancing act between doing this and maintaining the flow of writing an article and understanding a topic.
What I am trying to say is that the process of processing and handling the underlying data can at some point go too far. There is, for want of a better word, an intuitive process that involves a human accessing a set of source(s) and transferring the information into an article (with references). Wikidata sometimes seems to try and make that intuitive process more robotic in nature, which doesn't really work. I am going to repeat what I said elsewhere:
"There needs to be a separation between database maintenance and article writing, and an interface between the two that is intuitive rather than opaque." ( Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/Archive 4#Is this not a form of machine writing?)
Wikidata is great for organising data. When people then try and use this data for generating articles (rather than lists or discrete items of information), that starts to rub up against humans trying to put words together as language. Wikidata should be a resource, to be used by people writing articles, but it shouldn't be used to write articles in rote or automated fashion. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:43, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This is an archive of past discussions. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page. |
Archive 1 | Archive 2 | Archive 3 | Archive 4 | Archive 5 | → | Archive 10 |
This page is a terrible contribution to the discussion of the underlying issues.
I feel I could contribute both on "data integrity on Wikidata" and "reliability of English Wikipedia content", and the relationship between those two issues. But I have no intention of doing so here. I would actually be glad to have Wikipedia:Wikidata/2017 State of affairs deleted. The personal attacks on this page could be deleted under talk page guidelines.
The scope of the subpage title has shown itself, pretty much, to be too broad. We can surely do better than this. Charles Matthews ( talk) 12:19, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Well, I suggest a "refactoring" of the page would be beneficial. You do realise that some of the discussion above is "pot-kettle"?
I have been working on Wikidata since 2014, on projects which have nothing to do with infoboxes. I know certain benefits have arisen, for the English Wikipedia (and not only that one). I would say your comment above about limiting Wikidata to the indexing function (interwiki) is not really accurate. I think the verifiability issue on Wikidata is important, but not as simple as is sometimes implied.
I'm concerned that you say the page "will be used". As you say, in fact, it reflects mainly that there are divisive arguments used here, about Wikidata. It is currently fashionable to force the issue in divisive areas of politics: and we don't see the argument from factual evidence getting much credence there.
WP:VOTE, full title Wikipedia:Polling is not a substitute for discussion, makes the point in its nutshell: "Some decisions on Wikipedia are not made by popular vote, but rather through discussions to achieve consensus. Polling is only meant to facilitate discussion, and should be used with care." I am arguing for care, given that this Talk page shows not the slightest sign of emerging consensus. Charles Matthews ( talk) 13:40, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Let's take the usability discussion, for example. How could that be made "factual"? It is more suitable for a separate page, I would say.
I was actually thinking yesterday about the "Richard Burton's wives" issue you raised, because I was adding education histories to Wikidata items about people, and it is annoying if the order doesn't follow chronology. For Burton, you are actually "supposed" to add a "start time" qualifier in the "spouse" statements; and I would say that you should reference it. That is, the marriages should come at least with dates, if we are going to attach significance to any ordering at all. It is certainly is troublesome. if the marriages are out of order, for the human reader. You can only fix it by deleting and retyping. But actually, with the dates, the system could fix that. This doesn't yet happen in the maintenance of Wikidata, but clearly it could.
This sort of thing strikes a newcomer as a usability issue. Wikidata statements are added to the bottom, sort of - there is a division into substantive statements, and identifiers; and there is a setting in Preferences to display the substantive statements in a standard order.
So those are some facts, and explanations. Do you agree that such matters deserve a page of their own? Charles Matthews ( talk) 14:26, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Sorry – "they will never decide whether we (the broader community) trust Wikidata enough ..." – did you get elected to office here? I feel this kind of rhetoric is misplaced. Maybe half a year of Brexit does that to people.
I would say, with the best will in the world, that what is needed is a "Wikidata FAQ for Wikipedians". And I think the effort to get one by choosing this particular route in project space has probably failed. Which is why the page should be deleted, or edited very seriously.
But anyway, isn't a FAQ what we are talking about? Charles Matthews ( talk) 15:22, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
How about the ultimate point being the Wikipedia mission statement? Say as on q:Jimmy Wales. Or the WMF statement of purpose: "The mission of the Wikimedia Foundation is to empower and engage people around the world to collect and develop educational content under a free license or in the public domain, and to disseminate it effectively and globally." As far as I'm concerned, the latter has quite a lot to do with Wikidata.
How about addressing my point on the need to build consensus, per the important WP:VOTE essay, rather than laying down sweeping preconditions?
I apologise, as a UK citizen, for everything about Brexit. I did think you might include under "general criticism of edits or something similar" a criticism of tone.
I do think, if you will try not to take this as a personal attack, that the non-specific use of "we", as if representing a constituency, was not helpful. It anyway gives me a clue as to why this debate is not going well. Normally editors here speak for themselves. Charles Matthews ( talk) 16:24, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
OK then, it is better if the opposite of "us" is not "not one of us". Let's try for some consensus starting from GIGO. That's an important principle. So is the principle that one has to live in the real world. I find it interesting to draw a parallel with Commons. The metadata on Commons is, from some points of view, in a bad way: it can be 10 years old. It is essentially never footnoted. There are mistakes made here with images misidentified, so being placed incorrectly in articles. More worrying, if quite rare, is that apparently good metadata from a GLAM is wrong: I know this happens. It is unlikely that in all cases independent, third-party referencing could be provided: we tend to accept the GLAM metadata as authoritative.
So, why do we accept the use of Commons images here routinely, instead of insisting that everything be uploaded here, and the metadata scrutinised? I would suggest this is not a matter of "trusting" Commons: because the mass uploading probably makes that (a) meaningless and (b) implausible. There could be plenty of photoshopped nonsense: copyvio is more of a concern. There are two things acting in the other direction: Commons is very helpful in developing articles; and images, we feel, tend to provide internal evidence that we use in place of good metadata. "In the real world", don't we mainly just accept Commons on that basis?
To sum up: some of the arguments deployed in the case of "trusting" Wikidata, to adopt your term though I don't like it, can be seen in action here. One kind of argument would say "Wikidata is not very useful in developing articles or lists here". I don't agree, but we can have a rational discussion about that—and the WMF point I was introducing is that enWP and deWP are the hardest Wikipedias on which to make this argument, because they already have so many non-stub articles, the case being clearer on smaller wikis. The other part is clearly more interesting. It is rational to say that adding an image of a dog here and giving the caption "cat" is not really troubling: it is child-like vandalism and a small child could spot it. I won't try to complete the discussion here: I did say in my original posting I wasn't going to do that. But I think GIGO can be used in a nitpicky way, as well as sensibly. Charles Matthews ( talk) 18:48, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
insisting that everything be uploaded here, and the metadata scrutinised?is that it won't happen; hosting files here does not increase the scrutiny or quality in any way. The issue with Wikidata is that there is a widespread feeling that in information hosted on Wikidata there is less scrutiny and quality than information hosted here. Jo-Jo Eumerus ( talk, contributions) 19:30, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Yes, that was the "widespread impression" I said I wasn't going to address here.
Why I said that there was a pot-kettle argument in progress is that I don't think Wikipedians have the right approach, if they think denigration of Wikidata helps anything at all. For reasons User:Carcharoth alluded to above, amongst other things, Wikidata can be helpful with Wikipedia's quality of information, and has been criticised for its importation of data from Wikipedia. The part that might be taken seriously of all that is any issue of circular referencing.
Putting Wikipedia "factoids" into Wikidata where they are scrutinised ... well, honestly, if people can't see some good might come it, I don't want to spend much time on further exposition. Suffice it to say that machine-readable format could help with detecting anomalies. Charles Matthews ( talk) 19:46, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
The page currently says "We can block links from being added to enwiki (through the blacklist); what if these links are inserted from Wikidata (in infoboxes or so)?" This is incorrect. We have a global blocklist that's also blocking edits on Wikidata. ChristianKl ( talk) 09:42, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
I was going to edit the page, but then I noticed that is full of signatures. If the page is communal, shouldn't signatures be removed from it?-- Micru ( talk) 08:06, 19 January 2017 (UTC)
Template:Authority control is added to more than 500,000 pages so far. At first glance, this seems like a good thing. I do see some problems with it though:
If Authority control is supposed to be useful, it should be curated and much more restrictive. The blind posting of every identifier someone adds to Wikidata just because it is about the same person, but not because it adds anything at all for readers, is something that would not be allowed in normal editing, but is somehow acceptable because it is Wikidata-driven. Worldcat seems to be the only one that is consistently useful, all others seem to be dependent on the subject (e.g. Deutsche Nationalbibliothek should only be added to people with some link to German or the German language) or perhaps even never useful at all. As it stands, the disadvantages seem to outweigh the advantages, which are rather small to begin with. Fram ( talk) 08:59, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"same indiscriminate list of... links to all 500,000 pages with the same template"This is not what the template does. Yet more bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"same indiscriminate list of... links to all 500,000 pages with the same template". Your "nothing but a Wikipedia page" is yet again FUD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 10:34, 17 January 2017 (UTC)
":it suggests that either some authorities control the page"More FUD. Read the help page to which that phrase is linked in every instance of the template (and note that the phrase, our use of it, the template, that link, and the linked help page, all pre-date Wikdiata).
"the blind posting of every identifier someone adds to Wikidata"this does not happen. More bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:51, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
"for now"More FUD. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:26, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I've just reverted an edit which made the bold - and, ironically, unsubstantiated - assertion that "Wikidata edits violate
WP:V and
WP:BLP."
.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
20:28, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
"The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP.", which is still bunkum. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:34, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
"...you don't understand that"Bullshit.
"individuals who are strong proponents of using Wikidata information in articles do not seem to give any weight whatsoever to the editorial policies of the recipient projects"Also bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 20:28, 14 January 2017 (UTC)
"your rather extreme denial that there are BLP problems... you seem to be denying there are any BLP and WP:V problems". Really, Risker, we expect this kind of rubbish from the usual trolls on Wikipedia, but you used to know better. Shame on you. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:30, 15 January 2017 (UTC)
"core policies of English Wikipedia. If you're not on board with them..."More bullshit. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:46, 16 January 2017 (UTC)
I've tried three times to reduce my own post to bullet format without a signature, [11] [12] [13] but Pigsonthewing has reverted me. Could someone do that for me, please? It's my own post, so I should be allowed to write it as I want to; it's in the "disadvantages" section, where people were asked to list perceived disadvantages.
I would like it to say: "The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP." SarahSV (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
![]() | This
edit request has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request. |
I've tried three times to reduce my own post to bullet format without a signature, [14] [15] [16] but Pigsonthewing has reverted me. Could someone do that for me, please? It's my own post, so I should be allowed to write it as I want to; it's in the "disadvantages" section, where people were asked to list perceived disadvantages.
I would like it to say: "The lack of reliable sourcing means that imported Wikidata text violates WP:V and WP:BLP." SarahSV (talk) 23:45, 12 January 2017 (UTC)
And there goes the attempt to list the positions of both sides as they perceive them. Pigsonthewing, there are and will be "falsehoods" included in both the benefits and disadvantages section. If we only include things everyone can agree upon, the list will be very short and not useful at all. The (obviously badly failed) intention was to get to know the opinions, the perceived reality, which could then (here, or in a separate section) be discussed (politely, not by insulting everyone who dares to have a negative opinion of Wikidata). List what people see as the benefits and disadvantages of Wikipedia, not what the "real" benefits and disadvantages are, since no agreement on such a "real" list will ever be found. The "uses" and "discussions" sections should be factual (but there as well some Wikidata-promotors insist on adding "but it will improve" and "look what Wikidata can do" comments), but the disputed section not, as it can't be factual and useful at the same time. Fram ( talk) 08:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
"insulting everyone who dares to have a negative opinion of Wikidata"? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 09:09, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Can we please all agree to let people add their own idea of the benefits to the benefits sections, and of the disadvantages to the disadvantages section, without anyone else interfering with it? If you prefer, we can ask that everyone signs their entries to make it clear that it is the position of that person and not an "official" enwiki position. If you want to discuss these entries on the main page, start a new section at the bottom; alternatively, dissect any entries you want here to your (polite) heart's delight. Fram ( talk) 08:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
Pigsonthewing, please don't add incorrect "unsigned" templates. The comment above was mine, not SlimVirgins. Fram ( talk) 09:25, 13 January 2017 (UTC)
I see that this false claim has been reinserted. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 22:46, 18 January 2017 (UTC)
We now have - despite my best efforts to make it actually say something factual and useful - an unsigned claim that " Wikidata edits/transclusions (where data is included from Wikidata without a reliable source being provided on ENWP) violate WP:V "
As previously explained, this is still utter bollocks.
Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing);
Talk to Andy;
Andy's edits
17:47, 23 January 2017 (UTC)
"you have yet to put forth a coherant argument other than 'its bullshit, fud' etc."Now that is simply a lie. Desisst. Having refuted the claim, it is not for me to do so again, every time you or Fram chose to ignore that. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 11:21, 24 January 2017 (UTC)
From my experience with editing Wikidata and en-Wikipedia, there is an element of feeling that rather than pulling together sources to build an article, information is being broken down into data elements for the purpose of putting it back together again later (i.e. machine writing).
Anyone who has written an article on Wikipedia (by which I mean a properly sourced and reasonably standard-length article) knows that this involves accessing different sources of information and distilling it into words and presenting this information. The information present can be broken down into discrete elements and carefully marked up and filed away as data (this is best seen in the construction of infoboxes and the metadata associated with references), but there is a balancing act between doing this and maintaining the flow of writing an article and understanding a topic.
What I am trying to say is that the process of processing and handling the underlying data can at some point go too far. There is, for want of a better word, an intuitive process that involves a human accessing a set of source(s) and transferring the information into an article (with references). Wikidata sometimes seems to try and make that intuitive process more robotic in nature, which doesn't really work. I am going to repeat what I said elsewhere:
"There needs to be a separation between database maintenance and article writing, and an interface between the two that is intuitive rather than opaque." ( Wikipedia talk:Wikidata/Archive 4#Is this not a form of machine writing?)
Wikidata is great for organising data. When people then try and use this data for generating articles (rather than lists or discrete items of information), that starts to rub up against humans trying to put words together as language. Wikidata should be a resource, to be used by people writing articles, but it shouldn't be used to write articles in rote or automated fashion. Carcharoth ( talk) 11:43, 24 January 2017 (UTC)