Significance on Wikipedia
This topic is a bit of a response to a EuroElessar post stating that an article about his program was deleted from the English Wikipedia section.
So, suppose you are the main editor of a large encyclopedia. The staff of your editorial staff are absolutely any people - from schoolchildren to academicians (and for one academician - 10 thousand without a higher education). Moreover, it is impossible to find out who is an academician and who is a schoolboy. An academician may turn out to be a locksmith, a schoolboy can calmly communicate and edit articles on thermodynamics as part of a technical university course, a locksmith - write articles about favorite helicopters from all over the world, as if he personally participated in the assembly of each of them.
And here is the problem - you notice that the following articles appear in your encyclopedia (the list is current):
(this is in 15 minutes. upd .: this was a list of articles created in 15 minutes by unregistered users, or by users without an autorun flag (= most often, freshly registered))
Now the task. How to separate the grain from the chaff? How to choose what should remain in your encyclopedia , which claims to be of high quality , and what needs to be thrown out or transferred to other projects? What to focus on the work of editors, administrators,
There can be many selection criteria. For instance:
As you can see, there are many possible criteria. But which one to choose for your encyclopedia? It is necessary to set the conditions:
Wikipedia is guided by the following rules, called 5 pillars :
To select the desired criterion we take the first, second and fourth pillars. This is quite enough:
Thus, the options remain:
They are sorted in ascending order of stiffness. So, Wikipedia has adopted the mildest version of all admissible. And it is :
The subject or theme are believed to be significant if they are covered in detail in the independent authoritative sources.
Authoritative, most often, refers to sources that have an author (to check for neutrality and authority) and, often, an editor, for example, a publishing editor of a popular or scientific journal. Or even online newspapers, but still - there is an author and an editor.
Unfortunately, this rule is somewhere too rigid, somewhere too incomprehensible. For example, is it worth using Lebedev's blog as evidence of the significance of the topic of designing road signs? And an interview, for example, of the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences that we have 4 different Ivan the Terrible? Therefore, for such cases, clarifications have been specifically adopted:
Many of these rules introduce the so-called “a priori” significance, when, on the basis of formal attributes, the article object can be considered significant enough, even if there are no sufficiently significant sources about it yet. For example, for writers of fiction there is a formal criterion of "circulation of 20 thousand," and for football players - "entering the field in at least one match in the highest league of any country."
Formulation of the problem
So, suppose you are the main editor of a large encyclopedia. The staff of your editorial staff are absolutely any people - from schoolchildren to academicians (and for one academician - 10 thousand without a higher education). Moreover, it is impossible to find out who is an academician and who is a schoolboy. An academician may turn out to be a locksmith, a schoolboy can calmly communicate and edit articles on thermodynamics as part of a technical university course, a locksmith - write articles about favorite helicopters from all over the world, as if he personally participated in the assembly of each of them.
And here is the problem - you notice that the following articles appear in your encyclopedia (the list is current):
- Oppeln-Bronikovsky, German von
- FENU
- Eyes (Babylon 5)
- Thirtieth
- Profession lawyer
- Lawyer profession
- Digital Automata
- Longgong
(this is in 15 minutes. upd .: this was a list of articles created in 15 minutes by unregistered users, or by users without an autorun flag (= most often, freshly registered))
Now the task. How to separate the grain from the chaff? How to choose what should remain in your encyclopedia , which claims to be of high quality , and what needs to be thrown out or transferred to other projects? What to focus on the work of editors, administrators,
Possible selection criteria
There can be many selection criteria. For instance:
- The object of the article should please the author of the article (= no criteria, we take everything)
- The moderator should like the object of the article (as the left heel wants, aka “administrative arbitrariness”)
- The number of pages about the object of the article in Google / Yandex should be more than 1000 ("Google test")
- About the object of the article should be reviews on forums and blogs
- About the object of the article should be reviews in independent journals and publications
- About the object of the article should be a scientific publication
- There should be a scientific publication about the subject of the article with a citation index of at least 5.
- A monograph of a doctor of sciences, which is available in the state library, should be published on the subject of the article.
As you can see, there are many possible criteria. But which one to choose for your encyclopedia? It is necessary to set the conditions:
- They should not be tied to the subjective assessment of a specific person - you are not comfortable sitting in the editorial office for 24 hours, and articles appear and appear
- Most editors should agree with them.
- If possible, the criterion should be such that most editors can check it.
- They must meet your goals.
The solution to this problem on Wikipedia
Wikipedia is guided by the following rules, called 5 pillars :
- Wikipedia is an encyclopedia (not a dump of information)
- Wikipedia is neutral
- Wikipedia materials are free to use.
- Wikipedia has a code of conduct
- Wikipedia has no strict rules
To select the desired criterion we take the first, second and fourth pillars. This is quite enough:
- “The author should like it” - does not satisfy the first pillar
- “The moderator should like it” - does not satisfy the fourth pillar
- “Google test”, “reviews on forums and blogs” - does not satisfy the second pillar. There may be many publications, but if they are all written by one person, the presentation of the material will not be neutral. Plus, not everything that is written on the forums (= fences) should be significant for the encyclopedia (first stop).
Thus, the options remain:
- About the object of the article should be reviews in independent journals and publications
- About the object of the article should be a scientific publication
- There should be a scientific publication about the subject of the article with a citation index of at least 5.
- A monograph of a doctor of sciences, which is available in the state library, should be published on the subject of the article.
They are sorted in ascending order of stiffness. So, Wikipedia has adopted the mildest version of all admissible. And it is :
The subject or theme are believed to be significant if they are covered in detail in the independent authoritative sources.
Authoritative, most often, refers to sources that have an author (to check for neutrality and authority) and, often, an editor, for example, a publishing editor of a popular or scientific journal. Or even online newspapers, but still - there is an author and an editor.
Exceptions and Clarifications
Unfortunately, this rule is somewhere too rigid, somewhere too incomprehensible. For example, is it worth using Lebedev's blog as evidence of the significance of the topic of designing road signs? And an interview, for example, of the academician of the Russian Academy of Sciences that we have 4 different Ivan the Terrible? Therefore, for such cases, clarifications have been specifically adopted:
- Personnel Significance Criteria
- Website relevance criteria
- Program relevance criteria
- Criteria for the significance of theories, concepts and inventions
- Criteria for the importance of football
- Significance criteria for anime and manga
Many of these rules introduce the so-called “a priori” significance, when, on the basis of formal attributes, the article object can be considered significant enough, even if there are no sufficiently significant sources about it yet. For example, for writers of fiction there is a formal criterion of "circulation of 20 thousand," and for football players - "entering the field in at least one match in the highest league of any country."
About qutIM
- The object of the article is a program.
- The article should show relevance in accordance with the rule of importance of programs.
- In accordance with the rule, there should be independent reviews of this program in magazines, publications, in online publications, but not in forums and not in reviews of free program directories.
- At the moment, there is not a single link to these reviews in the article.
- It is nothing formally, from the point of view of the rules , different from the program written by the student in one night "on the knee" for the completion of term paper.