[okfn-discuss] effort to improve "open science" article on Wikipedia... also see citizendium

Fri Sep 13 22:52:26 UTC 2013

The web may not be zero-sum, but the time that each of us has to work on
things is. Citizendium is quite apparently struggling to the point of being
hopeless. On the other hand, contributing to the FSF's software directory
is useful, so are several other resources, directories, wiki's etc. — most
of which exist to serve some scope that Wikipedia doesn't cover.

Citizendium exists primarily to try to be Wikipedia without some of the
problems of Wikipedia. Rather than being a fork to serve some new purpose,
it is merely a fork meant to displace Wikipedia, and it is failing for many
reasons, including that the fundamental assumptions behind Citizendium lead
to failure to recruit authors. There's basically no objective evidence that
Citizendium is superior in any sense for any purpose, aside from wishing
that its aims held true when they don't.

My suggestion isn't to just use Wikipedia without question, but to have
some positive reason why another tool is a better fit rather than to
promote fragmentation for spite about issues with Wikipedia. Consensus
around our tools is useful for the pure sake of consensus, let alone the
fact that Wikipedia is largely high-quality and superb.

Respectfully,
Aaron

--
Aaron Wolf
wolftune.com

On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 3:09 PM, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com> wrote:

> "it will be best to consent to improving it rather than waste time with
> problematic forks."
>
> This is assuming that contributing to the web is a zero sum game, that if
> you contribute to wikipedia you can't contribute to anything else. Maybe
> you personally can't but others can. So, collectively, it's not a choice of
> only contributing to one or the other.
>
> "Wikipedia which is already a responsible, well-governed, imperfect,
> successful resource"
>
> The only part of that that is measurably true is that wikipedia is
> currently more successful (well, popular) than other on line encycs. I
> would say that it is not responsible, not well governed, and okay, also
> imperfect. Thus, the motive for contributing to wikipedia rather than to
> anything else is that more people will see it on wikipedia.  That is a
> current cost benefit statement. Of course, if more people contributed to
> other on line encycs, and cited those other sources, then wikipedia would
> have more challenges to its popularity, and thus less justification for
> contributing only to wikipedia. Kind of a self fulfilling thing.
>
> "Regardless of your critiques of Wikipedia"
>
> As we all know, anyone can write anything on wikipedia, and a lot of it
> goes unchallenged. Even if an authoritative body spent a lot of time
> writing something good, anyone can come along and mess it all up. This
> alone makes wikipedia very unreliable. Even if you attempt to guard it
> 24/7, you can't guarantee that what someone sees at any given moment will
> reflect what the authoritative body contributed.
>
> So, I'm not saying somebody shouldn't work on improving wikipedia, and
> devoting their entire lifetime to guarding the entry so it stays correct. I
> think that would be a good thing to do.
>
> However, it IS a good thing to also get the message out in other sources,
> especially ones that have more of a peer review process and not easily
> messed up entries. Citizendium is at least one on line encyc that fits that
> bill, and so I think it would be useful to contribute to it.
>
> Thanks
>
> Gene
>
>
>  ------------------------------
>  *From:* Aaron Wolf <wolftune at gmail.com>
> *To:* Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com>; Open Knowledge Foundation
> discussion list <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, September 13, 2013 3:49 PM
> *Subject:* Re: [okfn-discuss] effort to improve "open science" article on
> Wikipedia... also see citizendium
>
> I don't know enough to judge really, but the Wikipedia article about
> Citizendium https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Citizendium seems thorough and
> clear. The rationalwiki article is quite harsh:
> http://rationalwiki.org/wiki/Citizendium
>
> I don't see any actual justification for promoting Citizendium vs working
> for the continued improvement of Wikipedia which is already a responsible,
> well-governed, imperfect, successful resource with which Citizendium has no
> hope to compete. There is a lot to be said for consolidation / coordination
> / and consensus. Regardless of your critiques of Wikipedia, it will be best
> to consent to improving it rather than waste time with problematic forks.
> Fragmentation isn't a good thing, even though forking is a necessary
> freedom.
>
> Respectfully,
> Aaron
>
> --
> Aaron Wolf
> wolftune.com
>
>
> On Fri, Sep 13, 2013 at 11:35 AM, Gene Shackman <eval_gene at yahoo.com>wrote:
>
> I guess wikipedia is the big thing because this is what the public goes
> to. But there are other on line encycs, better than wikipedia. For example,
> see citizendium
> http://en.citizendium.org/
> where articles are written by named people and are refereed. They have a
> proto article on open data
> http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Open_data
> that needs input, and the beginnings of an open science article
> http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Open_science
> that needs lots of input.
>
> Gene
>
>
>
>
> Gene Shackman, Ph.D.
> The Global Social Change Research Project
> http://gsociology.icaap.org
> Free Resources for Methods in Evaluation and Social Research
> http://gsociology.icaap.org/methods
> ----------
> Applied Sociologist
> ----------
>
>   ------------------------------
>  *From:* Lane Rasberry <lane at bluerasberry.com>
> *To:* Open Access discussions <openaccess at lists.wikimedia.org>; Gabriel
> Thullen <gabriel at thullen.com>; Brian Basden <bbasden1 at gmail.com>; Celya
> HYPhD <celyagd at hackyourphd.org>; OKFN America <info at okfn.us>; Open
> Knowledge Foundation discussion list <okfn-discuss at lists.okfn.org>
> *Sent:* Friday, September 13, 2013 12:32 PM
> *Subject:* [okfn-discuss] effort to improve "open science" article on
> Wikipedia...
>
> Hello all,
>
> This email talks about an upcoming effort to develop the Wikipedia article
> on "open science" at the the Open Knowledge Foundation conference 16-18
> September in Geneva and online. The request is that anyone who is able
> should consider submitting something to that Wikipedia article - or to this
> list for those unfamiliar with Wikipedia - so that people can learn more
> about open science. The rest of this email talks about that - there is no
> need to read further if you are not interested in participating.
>
> *Why this matters*
> One way to describe open science is to say that it is the idea that all
> science intended to be made available should be made available. Right now
> there are barriers to collaboration in science, including inability of
> researchers to read papers (lack of open access) and inability of
> researchers to share data (lack of open data).
>
> Since the Wikipedia article on "open science" is the first returned result
> for a search engine query on the topic, securing the usefulness of this
> Wikipedia article is probably a prerequisite to anticipating that mass
> media will ever talk about open science and thus encourage a social
> movement.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Open_science>
>
> *How anyone can help*
> The easiest way that anyone can develop any Wikipedia article is to make
> sure that all major sources describing a topic are at least cited and
> mentioned in the references section of that Wikipedia article. If sources
> are not identified, then no one can develop the article. Please look at the
> sources already cited and if anyone knows a fundamental source of "open
> science" not mentioned in this article then please post it on Wikipedia or
> if that is not possible, mention it in this mailing list.
>
> Otherwise, anyone can edit Wikipedia at any time. Feel free to jump in by
> going to any Wikipedia article and clicking "edit" at the top of the page.
> If you do something wrong then I assure you that your contribution will be
> salvaged and integrated by others.
>
> Although the conference and drive to improve this article is 16-18
> September, actually you can feel free to contribute to Wikipedia at any
> time.
>
> *Who can do this*
> Stakeholders in the public perception of the concept of "open science"
> should consider that at least this project will influence them, just
> because this article will be for the foreseeable future the central source
> of information on this topic. Anyone who likes can give input.
>
> This effort is being organized by Ceyla of HackYourPhD.org. She just went
> on an international open science tour and documented an oral history of
> open science. She will be at OKCon in Geneva and can assist people at that
> conference. I [[user:bluerasberry]] on Wikipedia or lane at bluerasberry.comcan assist people on Wikipedia or otherwise online.
> <http://hackyourphd.org/en/> Ceyla - at the conference
> *<https://etherpad.mozilla.org/OKCon-OpenScienceHackDay> <------- Most
> details planned here *
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Bluerasberry> Lane - online only
>
> The P2P Foundation is an organizational overseer in this effort.
> <http://p2pfoundation.net/>
>
> I would also like to advertise that there is a mailing list for the
> Wikipedia community about internal policy on open access - open access
> advocates may want to subscribe to this here.
> <https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/openaccess>
>
> Also I would like to advertise that I recognize the Open Knowledge
> Foundation as a major international player in promoting community
> discussion about open science and related topics.
>
> Finally I would like to point to Gabriel Thullen and Brian as active
> Wikipedians who live in Geneva. I have no idea whether they might be able
> to say hello to any open science fans attending this conference but they do
> both know Wikipedia and they do what they can to promote access to
> information in Switzerland and beyond. Gabriel is especially interested in
> getting youth to edit Wikipedia and Brian contributes to health content on
> Wikipedia.
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:GastelEtzwane>
> <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Biosthmors> <--- pressed for time but
> friendly online
>
> Thanks for your attention! There is a concerted effort to improve articles
> on open science and open access before the summer of 2014, when at
> Wikimania, the international Wikipedia conference, we are making a media
> push for recognition that Wikipedians and others need access to information
> to make the articles that people are demanding!
>
> yours,
>
>
>
> ---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: *CelyaHYPhd* <celyagd at hackyourphd.org>
> Date: Mon, Sep 9, 2013 at 5:59 PM
> Subject: Some news..
> To: Lane Rasberry <lane at bluerasberry.com>
>
>
> Hi Lane
>
> How are you?
>
> The last steps of my travel were really busy. Since one week now, I've had
> more time to put the last interviews online. I also wrote some articles
> about Boston and Montréal<http://hackyourphd.org/en/2013/09/9th-to-20th-august-open-science-montreal-boston-world-of-bubbles/>and I hope to finish my article about NY tomorrow!
>
> Here is your open science interview<https://soundcloud.com/hackyourphd/hyphdus-lane-rasberry-wikipedia-health>
>
> I read also your comments about Kay's article about the Mozilla Science
> Lab.
>
> Thats why I wanted t to let you know that we will certainly organize an
> OpenScience wikisprint with the P2Pfoundation and Wikipedia during the OKcon
> Hackday <http://okcon.org/> on sept 19th
>
> Pierre Carl Langlais the french wikipedian PdD student is helping to
> settle everything.
> Here is the draf <https://etherpad.mozilla.org/OKCon-OpenScienceHackDay>t
> for different sessions we'd like to organize..
> Your advice are welcome
>
>
> Best
>
> Célya
>
>
>
> --
>  Célya Gruson-Daniel
> HackYourPhD co-founder
> #OpenScience community "Lets invent a research more open and transparent!"
> Site : hackyourphd.org
> Facebook Group / <https://www.facebook.com/groups/499463776745202/>Google
> group <hackyourphd at googlegroups.com>
> Twitter : @celyagd <http://www.twitter.com/celyagd>/ @hackyourphd<http://www.twitter.com/hackyourphd>
> Page G+<https://plus.google.com/u/0/b/105961843978246755631/105961843978246755631/posts>
>
> Follow HackYourPhD aux States : hackyourphd.org/USA
>
>
>
> --
> Lane Rasberry
> 206.801.0814
> lane at bluerasberry.com
>
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