The ad blocking software I'd like to see would detect and zap into a heap of ash those unrelated-photo clickbait ads; I'd rather suffer through some honest banner ads anytime.
Web publishers should get together to make a "Reader's Charter" that pledges to stop clickbait and intrusive ads. It's not that complicated. Here's mine
I'm wondering what you mean by "Search Engine"? Do you mean a way to sort and rank websites? That's only part of what Google does. You may want to identify what is missing from Google before following the models of the past.
Exactly. There is too much emphasis on the people as Wikipedia's problem, when in fact it's the software that's the problem. I write about problem of Wikipedia's software design in this blog post, and have implemented the solutions you suggest (randomizing and mixing the editors to avoid the accumulation of power) in Newslines, my crowdsourced news site.
>But you missed out the third and worst of the options: editorial decisions which pander to the advertisers.
As a publisher who has run successful advertising sales teams in print and online you simply create policies that say the reader experience is primary and that any attempt by advertisers to influence editorial will be blocked. Readers can tell very quickly if editorial is influenced by advertisers and most publishers don't like to be pushed around. If advertisers really want unrestricted editorial presence they can buy an advertorial.
Thousands of newspapers, magazine and websites deal with these issues every day without having to run porn or low quality ads. I don't see any complaints that it causes those publications self censorship. I suspect most of Wikipedia's worry about ads is driven by a fear that ads will try to counter bias in articles.
Well I wrote it, and the self-censorship point is nonsense. There are lots of effective strategies that advertising-based media have used for many years to avoid self-censorship. To think that the situation is unmanageable is just incredibly naive. Such policies include accepting any kind of advertiser irrespective of their views (and let the reader decide the veracity of ads) or only accepting certain advertisers on certain pages, for example, no oil companies on global warming pages (although this type of policy actually a kind of censorship). The effect of any advertiser exerting undue influence is minimized by having many advertisers.
The wiki gives power to some users who are vocal about having that power removed. Unfortunately, those who are used to the "the wiki way" can see few other ways to organize content. To them, everything must be done on a wiki, whether that is the most appropriate tool or not. Flow is yet another example of choosing the wiki's flexibility over solutions that could easily be more practical. This inflexibility is also true for many of the non-encyclopedic pages of Wikipedia, such as news and biography pages where different editorial workflows and presentation will give better results. If you are interested I wrote a blog post about the many problems that are specifically caused by the wiki software.
I am the founder of Newslines. We are the closest thing to a Wikipedia for news, although we are really a mix of daily news, Wikipedia and YouTube. Our writers create news-based timelines on any person, product or news event.
There are many problems with the way Wikipedia deals with news (see my article Wikipedia's 13 Deadly Sins. On the reader side, news pages are text-based, very unstructured, and don't have embedded videos and cannot be sorted or filtered. On the writers' side there are many problems with the 10-year-old wiki software that create unnecessary conflict and trouble for anyone trying to add data. By using a simpler approval process we have very few edit wars, happier writers, and a better reader experience. Also, our model makes it much more difficult for groups of readers to push their point of view.
Since we launched in May, our writers have added over 25,000 news events, on thousands of topics. Unlike other work-for-free-while-we-make-billions sites, we paid our writers $1 per post for those posts. In the next few weeks we are moving to a revenue share, where writers and editors can get paid for their efforts. Some of our writers have already made thousands of dollars and we hope they will make much more with the new system.
But for Wikipedia to actually become a platform fully embraced by women, it would have to change its culture in fundamental ways, reducing its emphasis on anonymity and providing more opportunities for meaningful companionship and satisfying social relationships between its contributors. Failing that, women will simply continue to vote with their feet, and find their enjoyment and altruistic fulfilment elsewhere.
Most of the reasons for the lack of female participation in Wikipedia, including those above, are false. On Newslines, my crowdsourced content site that aims to replace Wikipedia's biographies and news-based events, 80% of our contributors are women and minorities. See our leaderboard
Wikipedia can never work for minorities and women because its software and policies are specifically designed to exclude them. The reason we get more women posting is because Newslines is created specifically to allow users to add content without the conflicts that are inherent in a wiki-based system. Wikis are built through conflict. Wikipedia's conflict-driven software and policies attract ego-driven white males eager to gain power through the display of their knowledge. The intensity of this conflict excludes other groups.
I go further into this in this post, but the gist of it is that 1) we pay our writers to contribute 2) we have system that allows people to add information with no conflict -- so far over 11,000 posts with no trouble 3) posts are assessed on the quality of the post, not on who made them -- no conflicts of interest or harassment possible 4) and we don't allow editors ownership of the page -- denying powerful groups the ability to censor people and text.
The real crime though, is to blame the people who are excluded for the failings of the system. How many times do we have to hear -- by the people who created the system that excludes them -- that women and minorities are not interested, they don't have enough time, they don't know enough, they can't use the interface, they prefer fluffy stuff, and that they are are lazy? It's time to move past these old arguments and see Wikipedia's dysfunction for what it is - a software, policy and leadership failure.
I interviewed Mark Karpeles in May 2013. The first thing I did after I left the meeting was tell my friend, a guy who has worked for big banks all his life, that he should apply for a job at Mt Gox because it was very obvious they had no oversight whatsoever and needed someone like him to make sure they complied with basic financial software standards.
This is just typical anti-capitalist politics-of-envy bollocks. "Democracy starts to unravel"? Really? Getting paid the going rate *is* the sign of a free society. Attracting the best talent cost real money. I bet most of the commenters here don't complain when their favorite sportsperson gets paid millions.
Slashdot Mirror
Web publishers should get together to make a "Reader's Charter" that pledges to stop clickbait and intrusive ads. It's not that complicated. Here's mine
You might be interested in this: The Sexists at the Top of Wikipedia
Actually, the median, but whatever.
The Chicken didn't do it because it had already crossed the road.
I'm wondering what you mean by "Search Engine"? Do you mean a way to sort and rank websites? That's only part of what Google does. You may want to identify what is missing from Google before following the models of the past.
>Wales dictated that "interwiki transclusion" links that included thousands of links to his for-profit enterprise Wikia site, should be "do follow",
I am interested in this. Do you have a citation?
Exactly. There is too much emphasis on the people as Wikipedia's problem, when in fact it's the software that's the problem. I write about problem of Wikipedia's software design in this blog post, and have implemented the solutions you suggest (randomizing and mixing the editors to avoid the accumulation of power) in Newslines, my crowdsourced news site.
For those wishing to catch up, I made a news timeline of the rise and fall of the site
>But you missed out the third and worst of the options: editorial decisions which pander to the advertisers.
As a publisher who has run successful advertising sales teams in print and online you simply create policies that say the reader experience is primary and that any attempt by advertisers to influence editorial will be blocked. Readers can tell very quickly if editorial is influenced by advertisers and most publishers don't like to be pushed around. If advertisers really want unrestricted editorial presence they can buy an advertorial.
Thousands of newspapers, magazine and websites deal with these issues every day without having to run porn or low quality ads. I don't see any complaints that it causes those publications self censorship. I suspect most of Wikipedia's worry about ads is driven by a fear that ads will try to counter bias in articles.
Well I wrote it, and the self-censorship point is nonsense. There are lots of effective strategies that advertising-based media have used for many years to avoid self-censorship. To think that the situation is unmanageable is just incredibly naive. Such policies include accepting any kind of advertiser irrespective of their views (and let the reader decide the veracity of ads) or only accepting certain advertisers on certain pages, for example, no oil companies on global warming pages (although this type of policy actually a kind of censorship). The effect of any advertiser exerting undue influence is minimized by having many advertisers.
The wiki gives power to some users who are vocal about having that power removed. Unfortunately, those who are used to the "the wiki way" can see few other ways to organize content. To them, everything must be done on a wiki, whether that is the most appropriate tool or not. Flow is yet another example of choosing the wiki's flexibility over solutions that could easily be more practical. This inflexibility is also true for many of the non-encyclopedic pages of Wikipedia, such as news and biography pages where different editorial workflows and presentation will give better results. If you are interested I wrote a blog post about the many problems that are specifically caused by the wiki software.
Why u donate bro? Don't you know they don't need the money?
I am the founder of Newslines. We are the closest thing to a Wikipedia for news, although we are really a mix of daily news, Wikipedia and YouTube. Our writers create news-based timelines on any person, product or news event.
There are many problems with the way Wikipedia deals with news (see my article Wikipedia's 13 Deadly Sins. On the reader side, news pages are text-based, very unstructured, and don't have embedded videos and cannot be sorted or filtered. On the writers' side there are many problems with the 10-year-old wiki software that create unnecessary conflict and trouble for anyone trying to add data. By using a simpler approval process we have very few edit wars, happier writers, and a better reader experience. Also, our model makes it much more difficult for groups of readers to push their point of view.
Since we launched in May, our writers have added over 25,000 news events, on thousands of topics. Unlike other work-for-free-while-we-make-billions sites, we paid our writers $1 per post for those posts. In the next few weeks we are moving to a revenue share, where writers and editors can get paid for their efforts. Some of our writers have already made thousands of dollars and we hope they will make much more with the new system.
Some examples: Google Glass, Ben Affleck, Michael Brown, Paul Graham
For those interested, I made a timeline of Ron Klain's life.
Thomas Eric Duncan has died of Ebola
Most of the reasons for the lack of female participation in Wikipedia, including those above, are false. On Newslines, my crowdsourced content site that aims to replace Wikipedia's biographies and news-based events, 80% of our contributors are women and minorities. See our leaderboard
Wikipedia can never work for minorities and women because its software and policies are specifically designed to exclude them. The reason we get more women posting is because Newslines is created specifically to allow users to add content without the conflicts that are inherent in a wiki-based system. Wikis are built through conflict. Wikipedia's conflict-driven software and policies attract ego-driven white males eager to gain power through the display of their knowledge. The intensity of this conflict excludes other groups.
I go further into this in this post, but the gist of it is that 1) we pay our writers to contribute 2) we have system that allows people to add information with no conflict -- so far over 11,000 posts with no trouble 3) posts are assessed on the quality of the post, not on who made them -- no conflicts of interest or harassment possible 4) and we don't allow editors ownership of the page -- denying powerful groups the ability to censor people and text.
The real crime though, is to blame the people who are excluded for the failings of the system. How many times do we have to hear -- by the people who created the system that excludes them -- that women and minorities are not interested, they don't have enough time, they don't know enough, they can't use the interface, they prefer fluffy stuff, and that they are are lazy? It's time to move past these old arguments and see Wikipedia's dysfunction for what it is - a software, policy and leadership failure.
I made this news timeline of Swartz a while back. If you see anything missing drop me a note.
Confused? Feel free to check out my Mt Gox timeline
FALSE: Any other editor who sees you editing your own article will slap you with a ban for COI. It's a standard part of wikilawyering.
I interviewed Mark Karpeles in May 2013. The first thing I did after I left the meeting was tell my friend, a guy who has worked for big banks all his life, that he should apply for a job at Mt Gox because it was very obvious they had no oversight whatsoever and needed someone like him to make sure they complied with basic financial software standards.
For those who need an overview of the rise and fall of Mt Gox, I made a handy timeline
This is just typical anti-capitalist politics-of-envy bollocks. "Democracy starts to unravel"? Really? Getting paid the going rate *is* the sign of a free society. Attracting the best talent cost real money. I bet most of the commenters here don't complain when their favorite sportsperson gets paid millions.
Stupid Slashdot non auto link format! Timeline of McAfee's exploits
A while back I made this handy dandy timeline of McAfee's exploits: http://newslines.org/wiki/category/computer-people/john-mcafee/