User talk:Boris Tsirelson

Welcome!
Welcome to the Citizendium! We hope you will contribute boldly and well. Here are pointers for a quick start. You'll probably want to know how to get started as an author. Just look at CZ:Getting Started for other helpful "startup" links, and CZ:Home for the top menu of community pages. Be sure to stay abreast of events via the Citizendium-L (broadcast) mailing list (do join!) and the blog. Please also join the workgroup mailing list(s) that concern your particular interests. You can test out editing in the sandbox if you'd like. If you need help to get going, the forums is one option. That's also where we discuss policy and proposals. You can ask any constable for help, too. Me, for instance! Just put a note on their "talk" page. Again, welcome and have fun! Hayford Peirce 17:35, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome Aboard
I'm fairly new here myself, with maybe a weeks worth of edits under my belt. I just wanted to be the first (besides those pesky account creators) to welcome you to Citizendium.Drew R. Smith 20:07, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you! But do not expect me to deal with aquarium fish :-) Boris Tsirelson 20:13, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * As long as you don't expect me to deal with math ;-) Did you come from The Other Place™, or is this your first wiki experience?Drew R. Smith 20:27, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * If it is an euphemism for Wikipedia, then the answer is "yes"; thust visit (again) my home. Boris Tsirelson 20:34, 16 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Привет Борис, приятно Вас увидеть здесь. В случае проблем с местными процедурами или шаблонами, спросите у тех, кто на сайте (участники постараются быть вежливыми, обычно успешно), или прямо в Форуме. С улыбкой, --Daniel Mietchen 06:58, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. However I wonder, is it polite enough to speak Russian here? Boris Tsirelson 08:17, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * My understanding is that as long as the content of the message can be understood by all concerned with it, you can use whatever language you like. --Daniel Mietchen 08:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Hello, Boris. It is a pleasure to welcome you here. Aleksander Stos 13:30, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Thank you. Boris Tsirelson 15:14, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

On doubts
Do you actually intend to do significant work on the article sometime in the next hour? If not, don't upload it, or not until you actually want to start working on it. We are not creating a mirror of Wikipedia here. If you merely want your brilliant work on Wikipedia to be reprinted in another, more credible source, then you must make up your mind: are you really going to maintain and develop the article here on the Citizendium or not? If not, stick with Wikipedia. (A quote from CZ:How to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles)

I am astonished. Even commercial scientific journals do not insist that a journal article must differ from its preprint in the arXiv. In order to differ from the archive it is sufficient for a journal to be more selective. Likewise, in order to differ from Wikipedia it is sufficient for Citizendium to be more selective.

Is it a decent goal, never mirror Wikipedia? Or rather jealousy? Maybe I shall indeed stick with Wikipedia.

Thanks for the feedback. I tried to rephrase that policy page, such that it makes more sense. Some noteworthy differences between Wikipedia entries and arxiv preprints include that the latter are written with a coherent narrative about original research by a few experts for other experts, with no or few hyperlinks to freely available explanations of concepts that provide the context for understanding. --Daniel Mietchen 08:52, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * Nice. This version sounds better for me. Now I feel astonished, however, that you just modify a policy. In Wikipedia, to modify a policy is quite a problem; a consensus must be reached between a lot of editors on the talk page before even a small change. Are you sure that others agree with your new formulation? Boris Tsirelson 09:23, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * I didn't modify the policy, just tried to distill it down onto that policy page from my experience of about one year at the site. The best way to get feedback on such issues are the forums, so I started a new thread there. --Daniel Mietchen 09:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * What I really had in mind are Wikipedia articles made by myself (with quite small changes by others), that are written with a coherent narrative (I hope so!), for instance And of course I would be ready to improve it here if some critique appears. But the policy required me to criticize myself as a precondition! [[User:Boris Tsirelson|Boris Tsirelson] 09:29, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
 * This is covered at CZ:How to convert Wikipedia articles to Citizendium articles. --Daniel Mietchen 09:53, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * I'd try to avoid mirroring Wikipedia, because I don't think it is realistic, as perhaps had been the original CZ intention, to be "WP but better". Instead, I believe CZ needs to develop its own identity, taking advantage of some of the different policies. We aren't going to have the sheer number of articles &mdash; the question then becomes "why are we here"? The multiple answers involve doing some complementary things.


 * For example, allowing expert opinion and what WP calls "original synthesis" can position CZ as a resource that contextualizes information in a way that WP cannot. The Related Articles subpage system provides more means of contextualizing.


 * While I once contributed substantially to WP, I do no longer, as I simply do not find it a congenial environment. Other people do. I'd rather have the environments be well differentiated.


 * While both have provisions for educational projects, we may be able to have a better Eduzendium service. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:21, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * For now I am not quite understanding it, since it seems to me, I would create basically the same article here if I would start here. Nothing specifically "wikipedianish". Well, in fact some of my WP articles do not fit here (as far as I understand); but others do. Why not? Boris Tsirelson 15:33, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Let me answer by example. The article Wars of Vietnam, with a very large number of subarticles, probably could not have been written at Wikipedia. Indeed, a number of the subarticles could not have been, because they contain expert opinion that isn't necessarily in a reference that could be cited.


 * In like manner, we had a problem with a number of agenda-driven articles dealing with U.S. foreign policy, which, in fact, were imported from Wikipedia but before a subject matter expert could review them. The approach I used to put facts in context was to develop concepts in a top-down manner, from interrogation to intelligence interrogation, U.S. to intelligence interrogation, U.S., George W. Bush Administration. In many of these, I wrote as an expert, and, where appropriate, cited primary sources. I did not, as had a previous author, write about random prisoners and only cite allegations of impropriety. Ironically, I had much the same low opinion of the politicians involved, but I was able to stay reasonably objective.


 * It is my personal opinion that the WP tradition of writing articles on anything, and not ensuring they are linked to context, is flawed. Indeed, WP has expressed concern over "orphaned articles". I do not expect that articles on random subjects will eventually coalesce into a reasonable structure, unless some effort is taken. That may mean that subject matter experts guide by writing top-level articles, as well as advising on specific articles.


 * While it probably doesn't affect your subjects, another difference is that we do expect the first author of an article of a controversial subject to make some effort to present all sides. Some WP authors put up only their, in WP terms, POV, and expected others to balance it. Howard C. Berkowitz 15:43, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * All that is probably interesting, but quite far from my area of competence. In order to be specific, I'll create a text, you (I mean, "you all") will criticize it, and then hopefully I'll understand what is really the problem. Boris Tsirelson 18:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)


 * Ah, someone should really write an article about the nuances among "you all", "y'all", and "all y'all." :-) Matt? Howard C. Berkowitz 18:25, 17 June 2009 (UTC)

Welcome and more about uploading articles from Wikipedia
Boris, first let me welcome you most heartily. It is obvious that you have already rolled up your sleeves and are about ready to start writing/editing articles here.

I spent about 3 years or so on WP until I finally got fed up with all of the vandalism and, even worse, the revisions by inexperienced, young post-grads and others who considered themselves know-it-alls but who were not.

I have now been here on CZ for over a year and half. I never bothered to read the CZ article on how to convert WP articles. I have uploaded dozens of WP articles that I either created or contributed to heavily. But I first copied them to a personal sandbox here and then spent much time on re-writing/re-formatting/updating/correcting them before uploading them into CZ's namespace. I also moved the WP's "See also" section to CZ's subpage "Related Articles" and WP's "External links" section to CZ's "External Links" subpage. Then I also was quite careful to explain that WP had a similar article (and my role in the WP article) on the Talk page of the article that I had uploaded into the CZ namespace.

I echo the comments above about using the CZ forums to discuss new policy or initiative ideas. Also, when contemplating significant editing of existing articles written by others, it is "good form" here on CZ to first discuss your proposed editing thoroughly on the article's Talk page. Yes, I know that is the same as on Wikipedia ... but it actually works here on CZ and it did not work in WP.

I will also say that in my year and a half here, I have yet to see even one instance of vandalism in a CZ article. In WP, I spent about 1-2 hours every day cleaning up vandalism to articles I had written or trying to convince know-it-alls that their edits were not correct.

Once again, welcome to CZ and I hope my comments are useful. Milton Beychok 18:26, 17 June 2009 (UTC)