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Improving Wikipedia Coverage of Computer Science

Posted by kdawson on from the accused-of-original-research dept.

Pickens writes "MIT computer scientist Scott Aaronson has an interesting post on how to improve Wikipedia's coverage of theoretical computer science. Aaronson writes what while Wikpedia will never be an ideal venue for academics because 'we're used to (1) putting our names on our stuff, (2) editorializing pretty freely, (3) using "original research" as a compliment and not an accusation, and (4) not having our prose rewritten or deleted by people calling themselves Duduyat, Raul654, and Prokonsul Piotrus,' he identifies twenty basic research areas and terms in theoretical computer science that are not defined on Wikipedia, and invites readers to write some articles about them. Article suggestions include property testing, algorithmic game theory, derandomization, sketching algorithms, propositional proof complexity, arithmetic circuit complexity, discrete harmonic analysis, streaming algorithms, and hardness of approximation. One commenter suggests that professors should encourage students to improve the Wikipedia articles about topics they are studying. 'This will help them understand the topic and at the same time improve Wikipedia.'"

11 of 186 comments (clear)

  1. Original Research by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Essentially all that you have to do (or should have to do) to avoid the "original research" claims is to cite sources. It's not intended to be treated like some sort of scientific journal, it's intended to be an encyclopedia; everything put in the Wikipedia should have been published elsewhere first. Seems reasonable.

  2. Good to see... by E+IS+mC(Square) · · Score: 5, Funny

    It's good to see that somebody in academics is appreciating the importance and usefulness of Wikipedia, instead of ranting about inaccuracies and trolls.

    Now let's resume our program of bashing Wikipedia.

  3. Donald Knuth agrees by larry+bagina · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Knuth is a fan of Wikipedia, but he's a bit leery of the concept, saying that he would not want to have to remain forever on guard after making technically complex contributions, lest his comments be badly reedited.[citation needed]

    --
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  4. Prokonsul Piotrus by snarfies · · Score: 5, Interesting

    "Prokonsul Piotrus" aka just "Piotrus" is a rather controversial figure. He has been bought up in not one, but TWO arbitration cases, one of which is now in the voting phase.

    I stopped trying to add any content to Wikipedia years ago. WP:Notability is, quite possibly, the worst thing to ever happen to that website, and I got sick of deletionism bullshit.

    1. Re:Prokonsul Piotrus by sailingmishap · · Score: 5, Insightful

      Are you joking? Guidelines for inclusion are incredibly lax.

      If a topic has received significant coverage in reliable secondary sources that are independent of the subject, it is presumed to satisfy the inclusion criteria for a stand-alone article.

      Are you reading that? Any subject that's been mentioned in a magazine/book/journal/newspaper/website with some amount of editorial control is acceptable.

      That's every video game, every book, every television show and every episode of each, every politician, every rock band, rapper, and hit song that's ever been on the radio, every school, and every city, in the entire world, forever and ever,

      and that's without even starting an argument! The number of fictional characters and abstract concepts on Wikipedia is absolutely staggering.

      You really want it to be laxer than that? Here's where you can find that stuff: THE REST OF THE INTERNET.

      Deletionists are following the Golden Rule that summarizes the purpose of Wikipedia and all of the debates that have ever occurred on it, the one part that no one seems to get, no matter what:

      Wikipedia is an encyclopedia that summarizes research from reliable secondary sources.

      That's what it is and that's all it's ever going to be. If someone's doing something you don't like, either a) you're wrong or b) they're a troll and you shouldn't give up so easily. How is that any different from the rest of the Internet? How is that any different from real life? How could Wikipedia possibly pursue its goal better than it does without restricting people more?

  5. Beware of posting your own research... by BigZaphod · · Score: 5, Insightful

    A problem to watch out for is that if you add your own research to Wikipedia (even with all the proper citations), you'll get slapped by some self-important wikipedian because it is apparently wrong and evil to have the person directly responsible for the research itself to be included in the creation of encyclopedia content about said research.

    --
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  6. DocForge by truthsearch · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Or submit the articles to DocForge where original research is allowed. It's focused completely on programming and computer science topics. It hasn't grown large enough yet to breed overzealous editors, either.

    --
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  7. Re:Removal... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Tell me what you added and to what article, and I bet I can tell you why it wasn't worth keeping.

  8. wrong list by bcrowell · · Score: 5, Interesting

    He's got a list of complaints which is completely the wrong list. Essentially he seems upset about (1) not getting a byline, (2) neutral point of view, (3) no original research, and (4) having what he writes modified by others. Well, sorry, but those are all basic features of WP. They're not gonna change, and IMO they shouldn't change. WP has problems, but the problems are not on this list.

    In my opinion, the biggest problems with WP are (1) the poor quality of the writing, and (2) the tendency of the quality of an article to get worse over time, rather than better. Problem 1 is particularly pronounced in my field, which is physics; most of the physics articles read as if they were written by smart grad students who wanted to show off how smart they were. If there was going to be a #3 on my list, it would have to do with the factors that make me personally feel like working on WP has gotten about as pleasant as a proctological exam. But that's really not a problem with WP, it's just a problem that makes me personally not want to work on WP. Plenty of other people still seem to be happily maintaining it, which I think is great.

    --
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  9. So show us. by sailingmishap · · Score: 5, Interesting

    You know, every time there's a Wikipedia-related thread on Slashdot, there's a massive run of people with anecdotes about how they spent hours and hours improving some article only to have it reverted.

    I've never once seen someone post a link to the changes they made.

    Please tell us what article it was, and what corrections you made. If you go to the article's history you can post a link to the exact changes that you made, and the subsequent reversion. It'll take two minutes, I swear.

    You don't even have to go through all that. Just post your user name and the article title and we can find it ourselves.

    It would prove once and for all that Wikipedia is as bad as everyone says it is. I'd love to see it. We'd all love to see it. Then we can fix it and make sure that your corrections actually get implemented properly.

    Because otherwise you, like everyone else here, are just posting the equivalent of "my friend's friend died from eating Pop Rocks and Sprite." Baseless accusations that don't help anyone.

  10. HHGTTG vs Encyclopedia by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This really comes down to the distinction "Encyclopedia" (read: "A book, or set of books, or digital version of such, containing authoritative information about a variety of topics, arranged in alphabetical order") vs. Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (read: "A book containing the compendium of Life, The Universe and Everything, notable or otherwise, as written by everyone with half an interest in writing it.")

    Wikipedia intends to be a new-agey digital Encyclopedia, which includes academic drive, unavoidable deletionism, well-cited sources, and some kind of drive for neutrality (no matter how badly it actually fails at such a thing).

    What we need is a real-life implementation of the Hitchhiker's Guide. It should be far less careful than Wikipedia (and likely should be a superset of Wikipedia with all of those fun lists like "Things Gregory House has written on his whiteboard on House M.D.") The two sites really should work in concert (i.e. when something gets "demoted" from Wikipedia, it should slide into the Hitchhiker's Guide).

    The third effort of having a even-more verified-and-factual Wikipedia is already underway via several projects. Why hasn't anyone looked into the super-set?