(By the way, in US english, commas and periods should ALWAYS go inside the quotes.) But not in Commonwealth English, which opens a completely different can of worms...
You have described the dilemma of the Wikipedia editor/administrator.
There are edits that are obviously unhelpful; there are others that are clearly helpful. But there is a gray area of edits that falls in between, and for which editors' reactions vary a lot.
A good example is an anonymous/new editor adding unsourced information to a carefully-sourced Featured article. You can't let the information just remain there, as editors have gone through that page, double-checked the citations and validity of the statements, and generally polished the article to have its prose crisp and clean. But you cannot just revert the edit wholesale, as the edit was not done in bad faith. While sometimes the edits can be fixed, there are many times that the edits are incorrigible, and need to be completely reworked or removed (such as introducing widespread, irrelevant rumors on the biography of a celebrity).
So, at this time, some editors remove the text, with an explanation in the edit summary. Sometimes anonymous editors read the edit summaries, sometimes they don't. Often they wonder why their text got removed, justifiably so. Some users take that personally and begin accusing us of being "grammar Nazis", or even "suppressors of the truth" (I've heard that one before). But in a way, we're just trying to keep everything in order.
The AOL IP ranges, prior to XFF-Forwarded-For headers being sent to Wikimedia, had a very high number of edits. Every single IP in those ranges had hundreds, and in some cases, hundreds of edits. However, they also had block logs of the size of China.
While I'm not 100% sure that the methodology used by the article is correct, but using the total number of edits as a trust metric is pretty much wrong, as there isn't any apparent causality relation for anonymous editors. There may be one for individual editors (and that is a stretch, if you ask me) but due to IPs' nature, they cannot be ascribed to individual editors. So, the wikitext retention rate makes more sense.
That said, I wonder if they took reversions into account in their analysis.
There are several tangible benefits to having a registered account. The primary one I would think of is GFDL attribution: since your IP is not guaranteed to be stable (at least for most people), your edits cannot be attributed back to you as easily.
Additionally, as an anonymous editor, you can't edit semi-protected pages, but you cannot upload images either. You cannot move pages either, nor create pages in the article namespace. You can still create talk pages, but if you want to create an article, you have to go through the bore of Articles for creation. Also, while this may not apply to you in particular, unregistered editors cannot obtain administrative privileges.
I'm not really sure I understood the second part of the comment, but I agree with the first part. However, you'd be surprised at the number of people who don't. To prohibit anonymous editing is actually a perennial proposal which comes up periodically. However, studies like these really help debunk the perception that IP editors are inherently bad.
Unlike what some users may tell you, many anonymous users contribute content and not vandalize. The quality of the edits per se is all over the place, but this is to be expected, as there is no way a new contributor can know all the nuances of the in-house referencing system, or the indications made by the Manual of Style. But they do try.
It works on Windows as well. The only thing you have to do is to modify the rip format from AAC to MP3 in the Preferences dialog box.
Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing -> Import using MP3 Encoder. You can modify the bitrate for the songs you rip in the combo box immediately below the format box, by the way.
The link you provided is a few months old, so you'd think they would have had the chance to fix it. Sadly, that is not the case, as it is still happening right now. ~~~~
Yeah, it *could* be collaborating... otherwise, annoying MyWorld messages wouldn't pop up every time you log onto a Windows computer in the common computing sites.
~~~~
I literally don't know ANYONE who does any math, whatsoever, in Excel. Then you are not a student.
Simply put, Excel does come with some nifty statistics functions, and the ability to put a chart or table in a Word document is priceless when doing written reports for science classes. True, it is not the first thing that comes to mind; the best program for such type of analysis is something similar to MATLAB, but Excel's matrix functions are not that horrible, putting these senseless blunders aside. Unless you have a lot of money to shell out for a MATLAB license (if you are a student, you can get a semi-reasonable price, but if you're a company, be prepared to pay several grand for a commercial license), Excel is the tool of choice for most of the work we do at an undergraduate level. It is widely available, so you know you can work on your data *cough*homework*cough* in many places.
While other FOSS software may come with this ability, it is a lie to simply say that no one uses Excel for mathematical analysis.
Well, we would soon run out of disk space. However, we can (and do) link to the WayBack Machine when we identify a dead citation. It is a boring job, but usually yields excellent results, as only a few sites use a robots.txt file that bans the WayBack crawler. One thing I wish is that the few sites that do block the crawler would allow it someday, and then we wouldn't have to worry about it. Heck, we could even include a link to the Internet Archive on the default citation templates ({{cite web}} and its ilk).
~~~~
Yay, someone gets the point.:) Even we admit it, and put the disclaimer on the top of the page that is returned when you click "Cite this article"IMPORTANT NOTE: Most educators and professionals do not consider it appropriate to use tertiary sources such as encyclopedias as a sole source for any information -- citing an encyclopedia as an important reference in footnotes or bibliographies may result in censure or a failing grade. Wikipedia articles should be used for background information, as a reference for correct terminology and search terms, and as a starting point for further research.
As with any community-built reference, there is a possibility for error in Wikipedia's content -- please check your facts against multiple sources and read our disclaimers for more information. ~~~~
The owner of Monsoon might want to start thinking about what he wants written on his headstone right about now. If it were me, I'd be checking land prices in Siberia or the Antarctic.;-) Why would you want land in the Antarctic? There's PENGUINS there!
Slashdot Mirror
Or, you know, because they don't want to?
~~~~
Which leaves room for a follow-up study.
~~~~
~~~~
You have described the dilemma of the Wikipedia editor/administrator.
There are edits that are obviously unhelpful; there are others that are clearly helpful. But there is a gray area of edits that falls in between, and for which editors' reactions vary a lot.
A good example is an anonymous/new editor adding unsourced information to a carefully-sourced Featured article. You can't let the information just remain there, as editors have gone through that page, double-checked the citations and validity of the statements, and generally polished the article to have its prose crisp and clean. But you cannot just revert the edit wholesale, as the edit was not done in bad faith. While sometimes the edits can be fixed, there are many times that the edits are incorrigible, and need to be completely reworked or removed (such as introducing widespread, irrelevant rumors on the biography of a celebrity).
So, at this time, some editors remove the text, with an explanation in the edit summary. Sometimes anonymous editors read the edit summaries, sometimes they don't. Often they wonder why their text got removed, justifiably so. Some users take that personally and begin accusing us of being "grammar Nazis", or even "suppressors of the truth" (I've heard that one before). But in a way, we're just trying to keep everything in order.
~~~~
Er, no.
The AOL IP ranges, prior to XFF-Forwarded-For headers being sent to Wikimedia, had a very high number of edits. Every single IP in those ranges had hundreds, and in some cases, hundreds of edits. However, they also had block logs of the size of China.
While I'm not 100% sure that the methodology used by the article is correct, but using the total number of edits as a trust metric is pretty much wrong, as there isn't any apparent causality relation for anonymous editors. There may be one for individual editors (and that is a stretch, if you ask me) but due to IPs' nature, they cannot be ascribed to individual editors. So, the wikitext retention rate makes more sense.
That said, I wonder if they took reversions into account in their analysis.
~~~~
Go put me another hurricane article on TFA... :) :P
Hurricane Georges may be close to FAC status. I'm currently working on Hurricane Charley, in case you're interested.
~~~~
There are several tangible benefits to having a registered account. The primary one I would think of is GFDL attribution: since your IP is not guaranteed to be stable (at least for most people), your edits cannot be attributed back to you as easily.
Additionally, as an anonymous editor, you can't edit semi-protected pages, but you cannot upload images either. You cannot move pages either, nor create pages in the article namespace. You can still create talk pages, but if you want to create an article, you have to go through the bore of Articles for creation. Also, while this may not apply to you in particular, unregistered editors cannot obtain administrative privileges.
More info: Wikipedia:Why create an account?
~~~~
I'm not really sure I understood the second part of the comment, but I agree with the first part. However, you'd be surprised at the number of people who don't. To prohibit anonymous editing is actually a perennial proposal which comes up periodically. However, studies like these really help debunk the perception that IP editors are inherently bad.
~~~~
Interestingly relevant, considering that Truthiness was yesterday's Main Page FA.
~~~~
Unlike what some users may tell you, many anonymous users contribute content and not vandalize. The quality of the edits per se is all over the place, but this is to be expected, as there is no way a new contributor can know all the nuances of the in-house referencing system, or the indications made by the Manual of Style. But they do try.
~~~~
It works on Windows as well. The only thing you have to do is to modify the rip format from AAC to MP3 in the Preferences dialog box.
Go to Edit -> Preferences -> Advanced -> Importing -> Import using MP3 Encoder. You can modify the bitrate for the songs you rip in the combo box immediately below the format box, by the way.
~~~~
"Wikipedia Content Filter
Limit access to profanity in Wikipedia." Damn, how did they manage to do that?
Even after two and a half years on Wiki, I'm still trying to figure out how to do that, and I pretty much only edit hurricane articles...
~~~~
VFD? Wow, that's old... it has been called Articles for deletion for a long time now...
~~~~
The link you provided is a few months old, so you'd think they would have had the chance to fix it. Sadly, that is not the case, as it is still happening right now. ~~~~
Uh, call me dense, but if this is a "formal" fork, what is an informal fork? ~~~~
No, not really. [Note: takes a while to load.]
~~~~
Yes, it should, just like Dubya should get out of Guantánamo too. Only neither one will actually do so.
~~~~
No, it will probably be something more along the lines of "Eric is a fag and his face is punishable by law." ~~~~
For the people who may actually care: It is "no dinero", not "no denero", by the way. "Denero" doesn't mean anything in Spanish.
~~~~
Yeah, it *could* be collaborating... otherwise, annoying MyWorld messages wouldn't pop up every time you log onto a Windows computer in the common computing sites. ~~~~
Simply put, Excel does come with some nifty statistics functions, and the ability to put a chart or table in a Word document is priceless when doing written reports for science classes. True, it is not the first thing that comes to mind; the best program for such type of analysis is something similar to MATLAB, but Excel's matrix functions are not that horrible, putting these senseless blunders aside. Unless you have a lot of money to shell out for a MATLAB license (if you are a student, you can get a semi-reasonable price, but if you're a company, be prepared to pay several grand for a commercial license), Excel is the tool of choice for most of the work we do at an undergraduate level. It is widely available, so you know you can work on your data *cough*homework*cough* in many places.
While other FOSS software may come with this ability, it is a lie to simply say that no one uses Excel for mathematical analysis.
~~~~
Well, we would soon run out of disk space. However, we can (and do) link to the WayBack Machine when we identify a dead citation. It is a boring job, but usually yields excellent results, as only a few sites use a robots.txt file that bans the WayBack crawler. One thing I wish is that the few sites that do block the crawler would allow it someday, and then we wouldn't have to worry about it. Heck, we could even include a link to the Internet Archive on the default citation templates ({{cite web}} and its ilk). ~~~~
I don't know why that reminds me of Special:Listuser...
~~~~
~~~~