Hey, is there any chance that you could add an automatic site thing like “This page has been heavily (%number changes) edited by a low (%number) number of people for the last %number months. It may not represent an unbiased spread of opinion.” Looking at you, LW site on RW ..
You know, maybe I would like this idea more if the way you put it, in the context you put it, didn’t give me the vibe of “feature implementation with an agenda”. Perhaps there are better considerations for choosing new site features than the light in which it presents the LW article?… I mean, yeah, sure, if considered out of context, your proposal looks like a reasonable attempt to increase accuracy—but if accuracy is really what you set out to maximize, and not LW reputation, then you should agree with the other side of the coin: if the page has been heavily edited by a high number of people, there should be a message telling people to be more confident than average (that is, the average confidence about RW articles) about its reliability. Now imagine a world where this would hold true for the LW article. If that makes you ever so slightly less inclined to agree with this other implication of the policy you just proposed, then perhaps it’s not really increased accuracy that you want.
On a related note: Seriously, people. Someone, somewhere, doesn’t have an all-positive or even mostly-positive idea about us as a group. Which is fine. If you really care so much about reputation, consider the contents of the criticism rather than the fact that there is criticism at all.
You know, maybe I would like this idea more if the way you put it, in the context you put it, didn’t give me the vibe of “feature implementation with an agenda”.
It’s true! I do not deny it.
if the page has been heavily edited by a high number of people, there should be a message telling people to be more confident than average (that is, the average confidence about RW articles) about its reliability. Now imagine a world where this would hold true for the LW article
On one hand, I think in that world I would not come up with this idea. On the other hand, I don’t think in that world the LW page on RW would be such that I would expect to have this agenda.
On a related note: Seriously, people. Someone, somewhere, doesn’t have an all-positive or even mostly-positive idea about us as a group. Which is fine.
I just don’t like that the page looks as if it represents RW consensus while it’s basically edited by one or two people. I don’t know how common this is on RW in general.
I haven’t heard of such a thing, and in any case most RW articles that are actually good fit that statistical description. There’s no de jure ownership of articles, but in practice editors have their favourites and others often don’t bother. (I suspect the same largely applies to Wikipedia, though that’s just my human simulator talking, not numbers.)
I think (and IIRC people have done a few studies on that) that in the typical good Wikipedia article nearly all the content was contributed to by a couple editors, but there will be dozens of users who’ve made stylistic changes.
Hey, is there any chance that you could add an automatic site thing like “This page has been heavily (%number changes) edited by a low (%number) number of people for the last %number months. It may not represent an unbiased spread of opinion.” Looking at you, LW site on RW ..
You know, maybe I would like this idea more if the way you put it, in the context you put it, didn’t give me the vibe of “feature implementation with an agenda”. Perhaps there are better considerations for choosing new site features than the light in which it presents the LW article?… I mean, yeah, sure, if considered out of context, your proposal looks like a reasonable attempt to increase accuracy—but if accuracy is really what you set out to maximize, and not LW reputation, then you should agree with the other side of the coin: if the page has been heavily edited by a high number of people, there should be a message telling people to be more confident than average (that is, the average confidence about RW articles) about its reliability. Now imagine a world where this would hold true for the LW article. If that makes you ever so slightly less inclined to agree with this other implication of the policy you just proposed, then perhaps it’s not really increased accuracy that you want.
On a related note: Seriously, people. Someone, somewhere, doesn’t have an all-positive or even mostly-positive idea about us as a group. Which is fine. If you really care so much about reputation, consider the contents of the criticism rather than the fact that there is criticism at all.
It’s true! I do not deny it.
On one hand, I think in that world I would not come up with this idea. On the other hand, I don’t think in that world the LW page on RW would be such that I would expect to have this agenda.
I just don’t like that the page looks as if it represents RW consensus while it’s basically edited by one or two people. I don’t know how common this is on RW in general.
Pretty common. (Also common in the long tail of Wikipedia, I think.) The current version is mostly AD’s recent rewrite attempting to make it calmer.
I haven’t heard of such a thing, and in any case most RW articles that are actually good fit that statistical description. There’s no de jure ownership of articles, but in practice editors have their favourites and others often don’t bother. (I suspect the same largely applies to Wikipedia, though that’s just my human simulator talking, not numbers.)
I think (and IIRC people have done a few studies on that) that in the typical good Wikipedia article nearly all the content was contributed to by a couple editors, but there will be dozens of users who’ve made stylistic changes.