User talk:Thomas Wright Sulcer

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! Roger Lohmann 17:53, 14 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Welcome once more, Thomas! I saw the note you left for Roger and think that CZ:Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians may be a good place to start exploring the differences to Wikipedia. In case of further questions, you can usually ask anyone you see on Recent Changes. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 01:09, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Daniel!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I'm not at all familiar with Wikipedia operationally, so I really can't answer, but Daniel's suggestion of starting with the Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians is a good one. Roger Lohmann 03:51, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Roger!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 12:41, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Regarding your question on importing an article. If the article - as you write - is (almost) entirely written by you, it can be imported without WP credit, but you should leave an explaining note on the talk page. You can also import it first to a Sandbox of your user page, and later move it to its intended place. --Peter Schmitt 12:59, 15 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Peter!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:00, 15 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Forgot to say: It is also useful to mention it in the edit summary. --Peter Schmitt 13:20, 15 February 2010 (UTC)

Hello. So within a span of just 8 months you made significant contributions to 50~ articles? That's impressive. (Chunbum Park 18:08, 17 February 2010 (UTC))

Nipple of Knowledge
I don't think so. I'm glad to know you are an alumnus of U of R. The campus is nice, the professors are very demanding and competent, and food is tolerable at worst and usually quite decent. (Chunbum Park 18:44, 17 February 2010 (UTC))


 * When I was there, somebody had painted an elaborate, accurate large-sized (5'x10') dollar bill in one of the hallways. Is it still there? My dog used to swim in the Genesee River. My senior year they completed the Wilson Commons and the new building was a joy to be inside; but by now the structure is probably showing its age, right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:48, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Also my friend Terry Gurnett is the head of women's soccer at U of R. I wrote a Wikipedia article about him. He's won over 400 games.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:49, 17 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I don't think the dollar bill drawing is stilla round. Wilson Commons is still quite nice. I don't notice anything about it that's old. I'm sure there are more students of foreign and minority origin than when you were here. A phenomenon I've been noticing is that a lot of Asian students hang around by themselves and don't even associate much with their hallmates. I'm one of few Asians who mix in well. (Chunbum Park 21:39, 17 February 2010 (UTC))


 * Too bad that dollar bill was great -- one of the landmarks -- but it needed to be maintained and kept free of vandalism, so it probably succumbed. I'm a big believer in mixing as well; I married an Asian. And I'm part Asian myself -- Cauc-Asian. :) What are you studying at U of R?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 21:59, 17 February 2010 (UTC)

Wow! Lots of good ideas.

 * Thanks Howard!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

First, I may have confused you regarding quotes in citations. While it's indeed a preference, not a rule, that substantive quotes should not be in footnotes, don't lose them completely. Indeed, most of the quotes I have seen in your imports are meaty and belong (at least paraphrased) in the main article. We tend not to have as much use of several cites in sequence, but, in some of the cases, the quote is what distinguishes the sources. You may be able both to add to the main article and to avoid the sequential quotes by moving the quoted material into main text.


 * My thinking about the quotes was developed from working with Wikipedia. There were so many readers/editors who could come along and change stuff I wrote in a jiffy, undoing my work, in essence rendering my contribution nil. So, how could I prevent this? References. I saw inline reference citations as a great tool where a reader could, with two mouse clicks, check the source. If other wikipedians were like a giant wind of change, the references were like tent pegs anchoring my stuff. And the quotes within a reference citation made their checking even easier, since they could hunt for the exact text in the article if they wanted; further, I could cut and paste the quote right in the citation itself. This was my purpose. Generally, it worked on non-controversial articles. But on highly controversial articles like WP's "terrorism", references didn't matter; there was a hard core of administrators who have a fixed view of what terrorism is and isn't, and reverted everything I did or even other well-meaning contributors did. It wasted my time. It was one of the major reasons I decided to quit Wikipedia.


 * One other note: WP did a bad job (in my view) of teaching other editors how to create and use reference tools. As a result, new contributors to WP don't know how to reference, get reverted often, get frustrated, and leave.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * About moving quotes within citations into the body of the article. I'm a writer, not a great writer, but competent, and value simplicity and clarity. When I write on a difficult subject like Spinoza, I'm deliberately trying to bring along readers with me, and not lose them. Quotes, particularly if they have difficult unexplained concepts in them, slow down the reader, and risk alienating them, so I don't want too many quotes in the text regardless of whether they're relevant or not, particularly in the early stages. On the Spinoza article on WP, I had what I considered to be a great article (which is mostly imported to CZ here) which adhered to the basic concepts, but provided an intelligent introduction to a complex philosophy, suitable for beginners. What happened (if you see the "Philosophy of Spinoza" WP article now) is that a grad student (who CAN'T write well by any stretch) rewrote it with highly technical and difficult language, which even fellow Spinoza grad students might have trouble with. The article doesn't flow. It is intimidating. So, if this supposed philosophy "grad student" (as he claimed -- who really knows?) is writing in good faith to hopefully improve the article, he or she will find, in a few years, that NO STUDENTS want to study Spinoza's philosophy if they come across the intimidating Wikipedia article. If he or she ever becomes a professor, they'll have few, if any, students.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

For example, note 1 has quote XXX and note 2 has quote yyy. Where you now have statement [1][2], you might want statement. "For example, quote 1 [1] and quote 2 [2]."

Second, redlinks shouldn't be avoided, but we have different usages -- informal -- than Wikipedia. It's desirable to have a redlink as a suggestion that an article is reasonably needed. We don't wikilink dates, and we don't, for example, wikilink every journalist unless that journalist seems likely to merit an article.


 * Got it. Thanks. Redlinks when we want an article about it. My habit from Wikipedia was to avoid redlinks (there was dispute within the community about them) since it looked like an error (and focused attention on a weak spot in my contributions) and therefore weakened my material. But I can see them as useful prods for developing new content as well. I guess my policy here on CZ will be to continue to avoid them unless I myself plan to write a CZ article about them. Totally agree about not wikilinking dates also.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

In general, I find that your articles are on the long side, but also have many articles that can be extracted and both wikilinked in the main article and also through Related Articles subpages.


 * Yes, definitely long. I'm still not clear about how to break articles up into subpages. I figured out how to do this on WP; but not sure here how it works.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Citizenship
While we think about the scope of the article proper, I see immediate opportunities to create articles from biographical information that we really need in articles, such as Alexis de Toqueville and Juergen Habermas. Simply extracting the material there and writing an introductory lede would make a good developing article. Once you've created the article (I can help with metadata and links), click "what links here" on the left edge, and you'll see articles that address the person and perhaps have text that can be merged into the article.


 * OK, will consider for future projects, good ideas, thanx.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Handyman
The core of the article is the handyman business. The list of tasks could be a catalog subpage, with columns listing the task, the skilled trades, the tools (see tool/Related Articles), and materials. (tips Engineering Editor [hard]hat)


 * Agree about list of handyman projects as a subpage (or possibly removed altogether). WP didn't like lists; CZ policy is similar, is this right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

I'm personally interested in the business aspects, as I'm involved in setting up something of a handyman exchange here in a Cape Cod fishing village and summer resort -- we have widely skilled fishermen that can variously do handyman work in the offseason, or when, for example, fishing limits keep them ashore.


 * OK, my sense is it's becoming more dominated by franchise firms, but the prices for them are high. But firms like "Mr. Handyman" have been expanding (I used to work for them.)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * There's a loose idea of a "catalog", or annotated list. Another approach to list is the structure in a Related Articles subpage. It may be easier to show you than to explain it here. Shall we move Handyman to mainspace and continue converting there? --Howard C. Berkowitz 15:35, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes please go ahead and move it if you like. I'm unsure how to do things like metadata and Related Articles.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:21, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Wow, great Howard, thanks for getting the article ship shape. I'll try to find stuff to expand this topic.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 13:41, 21 February 2010 (UTC)

Terrorism prevention
This, and other articles, need some organizational thought. You've opened work into the individual and community protection area.

In the broader area, do remember that while we are English-language, we try not to be U.S. specific. Changing to my Military Editor hat, I've had involvement with terrorism and counterterrorism since the 1960s, and a historical perspective well before that. One key to excellent articles in this area is to be sure we don't imply all terrorism is post-9/11 or Islamic or even targeted at the West. I personally believe it is essential to separate terrorism as a tactic from insurgency or other reasons to select terror as a tactic to carry out a grand strategy. Suicide attack isn't always terrorism -- it may be purely military, but there are gray areas. I'd be delighted to work with you here. Even though there is an Approved terrorism article, I think it's due for updating. --Howard C. Berkowitz 11:13, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * About the US focus of the article. You're exactly right. In my hunt for information, mostly US material came up (harder to find stuff about other nations, or maybe this is my fault since I'm an American?). I see the material there in the sandbox as stuff which you can use or not use if you like.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * About terrorism as not being Islamic, or targeted at the west. I agree. But the "terrorism prevention strategies" article definitely assumes this -- the reason why this is so is how the article was constructed. I spent about a week reading all the mainstream sources on terrorism prevention, and this is what resulted; so, regardless of my opinion or your opinion, the NY Times and Washington Post and the Economist all tend to think of terrorism as Islamic radicals post 9/11 shoe-bomber types. (I'm exaggerating for effect here). My sense of terrorism (if you read my pdf file Common Sense II) is much wider.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * About general strategy for the terrorism and terrorism-related articles. I think this whole subject area is one where we can SHINE relative to Wikipedia, since the WP articles have been fixed by a group of administrators with a rather narrow focus on what terrorism is, and are unlikely to change. So here's where you and I could do a superior job which illustrates how CZ is superior to WP. But, how to do this?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * And my tentative suggestions are these, but I'm interested in what your take is on this. Articles about definitions (eg "terrorism", "counterterrorism", "counterinsurgency") should be short but intensely packed with references, and focus ONLY on what the mainstream thinking is about what these definitions exactly are as best we can (or if there is substantial disagreement, to show concisely what this disagreement is). That is, we should stick to the subject, and keep each definition article short (with links to other terms) and focus on what mainstream publications and dictionaries views on the subject. Like, an article about "counterterrorism" should deal with the definition only, what the senses of it are, and avoid going into long discussions about specific counterterrorism strategies or policies in different countries, or whether it involves "tactics" or "strategy". In contrast, articles about preventing terrorism, acts of terrorism, theories about terrorism etc should be longer and can reflect differing viewpoints like your idea that "terrorism is a tactic" and related material. That's one way to organize it. But I'm wondering what you think. What will confound everybody here is when we all are working from different premises of what terrorism is, and it's easy to run around in circles.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:18, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Remember, first, that CZ doesn't necessarily require every statement to be referenced or come from an outside source, if the author has expertise in the subject. We encourage a loosely defined concept of "original synthesis", which puts facts and sourced information in context. If you look at the insurgency article, there are about 40 sources, of which 1 is from a news medium.


 * In general, for the Military workgroup, I discourage journalistic references, when they can be avoided. They can't be avoided for current events, but I try to use multiple sources, not all U.S., and supplement both with expertise and more authoritative sources as they become available. --Howard C. Berkowitz 15:26, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * OK.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:24, 20 February 2010 (UTC)

Brewing your ideas
Lots of good stuff in there, Thomas. I suggest that you let them out one by one by dedicated posts on the forums. This will facilitate their discussion and help to put them in context of other discussions. Cheers, --Daniel Mietchen 14:08, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks, Daniel! Will learn how to use these forums hopefully!--Thomas Wright Sulcer 14:25, 20 February 2010 (UTC)


 * I checked out the forums but there were so many. I was expecting some kind of way-station for tentative articles to go (for scrutiny by other editors) before going live, but I guess the forums are just ways to talk with others to try to generate interest in a topic, am I right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 02:40, 21 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, the Forums are where we *talk* about articles in general, policy, technical stuff, the *occasional* article in particular if there is some special reason for doing so in a wider forum than its own Talk page (so that more Citizens will be aware of the discussion), and other miscellaneous chitchat. Just click on the "Show unread posts since last visit" at the upper left and after a week or so you will be 100% up-to-date with everything that is going on in the Forums. And don't hesitate to start your own new topics. Hayford Peirce 19:00, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * PS -- don't forget that you will have to *register again* at the Forums to become a participant there. It only takes a couple of moments but is not 100% intuitive -- please read the instructions carefully at the top of the page, including the exhortation to create a signature for yourself.  Thanks! Hayford Peirce 19:04, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * OK thanks for advice. Will get into forums perhaps over the weekend. In general if I add articles which I think are worthy, well-researched, even if ported from WP -- if I go ahead and just add them, is this okay? Or is there some kind of clearinghouse procedure to get them approved first?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:20, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Just port them over by yourself and do, in general, what is being done to the ones that you already have brought over. Bringing articles over, and documenting them, is more of an art than an exact science. A couple of years ago I brought over *dozens* of articles, almost all of them versions that I myself had written 100% or close to it. On some, or most, of them, I put a WP template on the Talk page -- see: http://en.citizendium.org/wiki/Talk:Bill_Johnston I think that the actual template itself has been slightly modified now, but it's useful to put it on the Talk page, along with any info that you might add to it. And, of course, in some cases, you will want to check off the "Content is from Wikipedia?" at the bottom of the edit page, just above the "Save page" button. Once again, this is an art, not a science. Hayford Peirce 20:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

hi
Hi Tom, i was just reading your user page. A lot of good thoughts. Much of this has been discussed before in the forums although I can't direct you to specific conversations. Many of these things are still up in the air too.

Let me know if you need help with the mechanics of subpages etc. It is more complicated than wikipedia but hopefully it will evolve into a slightly less chaotic environment. Obviously it's still early days and everything is up for discussion. Chris Day 19:16, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks Chris will hopefully understand how to do this stuff.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 19:21, 25 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Obviously the metadata is one big difference between CZ and WP. Each page and subpage has the Subpages template at the top and this interprets the information on the metadata page to give a navigation banner at the top of each page.


 * Another major difference from wikipedia is the lack of categories, except those that are added automatically for housekeeping purposes. Instead, we use the the Related Articles subpage. If these are filled out thoughtfully they will result in a powerful browsing/navigation tool. See the link for more on the mechanics and some basic information.  Chris Day 19:42, 25 February 2010 (UTC)

Tennis players
Hi, Thomas, I just saw that you started a sandbox with a WP import about tennis players. I don't know, of course, what your thoughts are with this, but I just wanted to say that we already have two very elaborate "catalogs', one called Tennis/Catalogs/Famous players and Tennis/Catalogs/World No. 1 male players. Larry was/is very strong on "catalogs", so that's how we classify a lot of things.  The No. 1 stuff I bascially brought in from WP, where I had originated it in the first place.  The Famous players catalog, however, was created here, with a lot input from the tech people.... Hayford Peirce 19:25, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * Oh. Thanks for telling me Hayford. When I did a search on CZ for "Famous tennis players" (what Daniel suggested was one of the "key traffic driver" terms) I didn't get anything here. On WP, there were lists. So I figured this was a great way to outcompete WP. So I imported the male players to a sandbox. But you're saying it originated on CZ first by you, then got scooped by WP, and I just scooped it back? How marvelous! I'll check with you b4 doing anything more about this. I should check my watchlist more often. :)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 20:15, 27 February 2010 (UTC)


 * My recollection of the chronology is this: when I joined WP around 2003 or '04 some of us started a very bare-bones Famous tennis players list. For males, I guess. It was about like what it is at WP today, but was more just a plain list of names without much, if any, info about the players.  Then when I came to CZ in May of '07 I decided to start a similar list again.  I got it underway, a simple list, I think, but Larry intervened and said he wanted it to be a *catalog*.  Then a couple of other people got involved and designed the template that we're using today.  So you might say that its origins were an outgrowth of WP, but that it quickly changed to its own format, which owes nothing to WP at all.  The other big catalog, for the No. 1 players, I invented at WP and was the primary author for a long time.  When I moved to CZ, I brought it along with me, made a lot of changes in the text, but left the format just the same, or mostly so. Hayford Peirce 20:56, 27 February 2010 (UTC)

Honoring contributors
I saw your thoughts about this on your User page and while it's a nice idea it's also one that people here at CZ have discussed, argued about, not quite fought about, for a *long* time now, with all sorts of *very* ingenious proposals made about *how* this could be done, but in the long run no one has ever figured out a way of doing it that would take into account all of the pros and cons on each side of the discussion. Somewhere in the Forums are lengthy threads devoted to this issue.... Hayford Peirce 02:46, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Yes, thanks Hayford for letting me know. I figured there had been discussion, that it was ongoing, and important, although the prospect of slogging through lengthy discussions does not seem particularly intriguing to me at this moment. I wonder if it's one of those things we just start by doing it, and hope it catches on?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 11:48, 2 March 2010 (UTC)


 * No, it's definitely not something that can just be done. First of all, it would absolutely contradict the whole basic philosophy of CZ as set forth in the beginning of the project.  It *could* be done, eventually, but ONLY if the Charter-writing people rewrite the forthcoming Charter to allow it.  And even then, they, or someone, would have to work out a feasible WAY of doing it.  I'm not saying that three years from now there *won't* be signed articles of one sort or another, but right now it is simply a no-go situation. Hayford Peirce 16:55, 2 March 2010 (UTC)

Guidance
Hi Thomas,

I appreciate that you read what I am writing, but I am irritated a bit by the frequency at which my name appears in what you are writing, particularly those pieces not directly addressed to me. As Hayford pointed out, it is current community practice not to single out individual contributors, and significant changes to this are not on the horizon.

I also appreciate that you keep adding good content (as opposed to simply importing it from elsewhere), and I will continue to comment on this if I may. For instance, I noticed that you might wish to take another look at the way the CZ:Metadata is to be filled in. Namely, only those workgroups listed at CZ:Workgroups are foreseen (and set up, templatewise) as cat1, cat2 or cat3. The reasoning behind that is more or less that we currently have too few editors to be able to provide CZ:Editor-ial guidance on fields more specialized than these workgroups, although most of us probably would prefer the project reaching a stage when this becomes possible.

None of the articles that you started falls under the realm of a workgroup in which I am an Editor, so my comments are just those of a fellow Citizen who still remembers his initial time at CZ and tries to share some of these experiences with an active newcomer.

--Daniel Mietchen 16:47, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My apologies. I've become habituated to Wikipedia's wiki-lawyering style of fighting, and since I like to contribute a lot, I've developed the habit of justifying every change, showing every reference I could find, showing permissions, as defensive measures to keep my contributions from being deleted. So, if somebody comes along and says "hey, why is there an article about What is the?" or "Hey why is there an article about "DVD" in all capitals when it's against policy and then deleting it, or attaching a speedy delete tag, the fact that I can include your name there too might slow this down, or cause possible deleters to second-guess themselves? Like, it's not just me doing something, but I'm acting based on advice from others who know more than me. Such is my logic. Conversely, I don't mind if you use MY name to add weight to your arguments; like, I think your ideas about robots.txt are on the mark, and I support you fully. But I'm coming to see that this defensive anticipatory-wikilawyering style is unnecessary here, perhaps counterproductive, so I'll try to be more accepting.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Thanks for link to workgroups. I hadn't known where to find it. I copied it to my all-purpose helper text file, and will only pick ones from the list. So, DVD should be in the categories "computers" and "media", and perhaps in "games", right?--Thomas Wright Sulcer 18:13, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Overall, when I get the time, I'll want to write an article which explains quickly, clearly, and simply, what veteran Wikipedia editors need to know about how to contribute here. I've found CZ much more complex, cumbersome, and detail-oriented, and I'm having trouble getting the hang of things. If there IS such an article and you know where it is, please help me find it; otherwise, I'll probably write it in a month of so.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Last, the whole "metadata" page confuses me to no end, but if I can get the habit of doing it right with no fuss, then I'll be less of a bother to people. so if I continue to make screwups, let me know, and I'll try to get it right before I get stuck in bad habits.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 17:30, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We do have some decision hierarchies concerning content or behaviour but not between people, and most here feel very strong about this. That is, in every aspect of the project, your opinion and mine count equally, unless one of us has more expertise. In my edit summaries, I will often mention relevant CZ articles or paste external links that I sourced from, but only rarely make reference to people. The CZ intro for Wikipedians page is at CZ:Introduction to CZ for Wikipedians &mdash; I would love to see this being turned into something more useful (perhaps along with CZ:FAQ and CZ:About, making use of nutshell summaries as at CZ:Why Citizendium?). The Workgroups page and some other useful stuff are also linked from the Welcome page and from the left sidebar, and CZ:Content Policy may also be of interest to you. --Daniel Mietchen 18:49, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Early in my work in medical informatics, I learned that it wasn't enough to use language correctly, but, to be credible, I had to choose the words and phrasing that physicians used to one another. What has that to do with this discussion, you may ask? It is a nuance, but I note that you refer to generic lower-case-e "editors" here, where the CZ usage is "author" or "citizen". An upper-case-E "Editor" is something specific that doesn't exist at WP.


 * In like manner, we don't have Administrators. Constables are the closest, but, referring to your understandable defensive style from WP, Constables here first try to avoid conflict. Personally, I don't think it's appropriate for anyone to do the equivalent of a WP "speedydelete" here for an established author, but rather to make a talk page comment. Not everyone agrees with me.


 * Apropos "guidance", is anyone more comfortable than I in doing a mathematical introduction to inertial guidance? Howard C. Berkowitz 19:15, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * We don't have Administrators, except where we do. If you go to Forums, to Members, and then do a sort on "Position", you'll find, at the top of the sort, seven "Administrator"s.  Including me.  Don't ask me why, however.... Or whether we're all Administrators only in the Forums or also in the main part of CZ.... Or what our salaries are.... Hayford Peirce 19:38, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Must you confuse this with confusing facts? Howard C. Berkowitz 20:09, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Read through many of the guidelines pages. I think I knew most of it somehow. Didn't understand the whole distinction about referencing people vs referencing topics; I had thought if it was positive that it had been okay. Still, my sense is a Wikipedian having to slog through all that stuff, or hunt down all those pages, could get overwhelmed with all of the policies and statements and such, and that I think it's possible to write something short clean and clear with fewer possibly distracting links, which does the job. I'll put it on my to-do list, and perhaps write something and see what others think.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 22:06, 4 March 2010 (UTC)

Certainly a new arrivals perspective would be useful. Part of your confusion might be due to the fact that the idea of how to present CZ is evolving. I am not sure all those pages represent an up to date 'vision'. Also, there are some things here that appear similar, but then don't work the way someone with experience at wikipedia might expect. Categories is one; others are a new twist, like related articles, that are just a sophisticated version of "See Also" and the topic templates seen at the bottom of many wikipedia pages. Finally, the real name policy and community size (much smaller) mean a very different social dynamic.

I think there is one analogy that fits the frustrations that new arrival have here. I speak british English, but I live in the US. For a long time I found some situations where communication was surprisingly hard. I realise now that many of the phrases i used were completely foreign to my audience. I thought I spoke the language here, and likewise Americans expected me to be able to speak the language. In reality the differences were enough to lead to a lot of confusion in the early months. Chris Day 22:26, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * What???--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Maybe that analogy doesn't work for you ? :) Chris Day 00:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * :)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 05:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Chris is quite correct that the internal view is evolving. As an academic, he will probably appreciate a cartoon that had a student, in the first panel, challenging the professor's statement "it is obvious that..."


 * Said professor immediately dismissed the Tuesday class. On their return on Thursday, the next-to-lastlast panel showed a demented-looking, unshaven, sleepless instructor, who had covered the board with equations. Demonically, he declaimed, "Yes...it is obvious.".


 * The Charter Committee has frequently asked itself what is obvious. At the same time, it has various discussions on currently stated policies, which may have been initial goals but have variously proved unworkable, or have changed. Howard C. Berkowitz 22:43, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Interesting Howard. @Chris: I prefer the British "lift" for elevator, but I much prefer the American "truck" to "lorry". And I prefer Britain's parliamentary government system over America's inept constitutional system any day. :)--Thomas Wright Sulcer 23:07, 4 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The real problems come with colloquialisms like skive. Chris Day 00:48, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * You mean skive? What a GREAT word, which sounds like what it means.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 05:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * That's the one. Chris Day 15:28, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Not always. I had an educated Frenchman visiting me a few years ago who took off in a rented car for a trip to Las Vegas and through the wilds of Arizona. When he got back about a week later he reported that he had got himself sidetracked somewhere *way* off the beaten path and was asking the filling station attendants in Armpit, Arizona, pop. 6, "Could you kindly tell me where is zee dual carriageway, pleese?"  Hehe.  He was baffled that no one had the slightest idea what he was talking about.... Hayford Peirce 01:36, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * "Dual carriageway"? Pardonnez moi, mon francais est mauvais.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 05:51, 5 March 2010 (UTC)

Competing with Wikipedia
Yes -- there is a general dislike for importing from Wikipedia. It's fair to say we don't want to be Wikipedia, and, speaking for myself, I'm generally not motivated to "improve" articles written in the Wikipedia environment, unless there are special considerations.

For example, I'm perfectly willing to CZ-convert articles you bring in, because you are also creating content here. As you've mentioned, you've written at WP in a defensive style against wikilawyering, which, among other things, requires huge numbers of not necessarily authoritative citations. One of the WP tendencies is to use news media sources for other than current events, while our style is much more to go to official documents, think tanks, etc.

If I wanted to write in WP style, I'd still be at WP. If we have to depend on large numbers of WP imports to drive traffic, I am afraid we will lose distinct style and quality. If that's the only way to drive hits, I think I'd give up. Howard C. Berkowitz 23:12, 5 March 2010 (UTC)


 * Let's not forget, however, Howard, that the original intention was to *fork* off Wikipedia and to use that as a base to create a *better* Wikipedia, one that would reflect Larry's two or three primary concerns: Expertise; professionalism; and real names. Personally I think that the Founders made a *huge* mistake when they deviated from this idea.  Sure, we'd lose *you* :( and maybe some others, but we'd also have a couple of *million* articles AND we'd have a whole *ton* of people, thousands and thousands and thousands, I'd bet, who'd be like me -- overjoyed to find a Wikipedia that they could join, revise their articles, and NOT worry about having them destroyed by vandals and cretins.  Within a couple of years, I'll bet that every single WP article would have been *completely* revised, reformatted, restylized, and rewritten.  What would be wrong with that?  We would have millions of hits per day, millions of excellent articles, and maybe a half-million or so *Approved* articles.  It's probably too late to do this today, but it could certainly have been done three years ago when the CZ was new, young, and exciting, and thousands of people dropped into take a look at it. If *I* were a Charter-writing member, this is what I'd be arguing for.  Even if it didn't work, how could we be worse off than we are today?  Would you like to make a modest side bet with me about how many Citizens end up voting for/against the final Charter proposition? Hayford Peirce 00:09, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I totally agree with Hayford. I think this is a complex, ongoing issue, with lots of considerations. I'm continuing to explore this. And I think we're all wanting the same long term general outcome, which is a quality online encyclopedia with authoritative content, where contributors are protected, and an atmosphere of civility and courtesy dominates, and which is useful, smart, and helpful. Isn't that the goal? But how to get there is where I think, in some respects, Howard and I diverge.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * In general, I was happy with Wikipedia because of the influence -- people READ what I wrote -- and not only a few people, but hundreds of people EACH DAY, sometimes thousands. What a treat. This is so different from trying to get people to read my book which continues to struggle on Amazon. But I hated the anonymous attack-happy environment, and I didn't know who I was up against, whether it was sockpuppets, malevolent administrators, and such, and the environment was not conducive for stable contributing. My hard work was often deleted with a mouse click, and the prospect of having to edit-war over often trivial and stupid things was wearying. So that's why I like CZ better -- an identified world, with polite contributors, with the prospect of fairness, where I can contribute and my contributions will probably be protected if they're good and fair and accurate, sharp smart people like Howard and Hayford.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * But Citizendium has problems, serious ones. And the BIG problem is: nobody's reading it. When I do a Google search for an article I've created on CZ, IT DOESN'T EVEN SHOW UP IF I TYPE SITE:CITIZENDIUM.ORG and the article name in the search box. Why not? Do I have to wait a month for the Google crawler to explore the site and update the links? This isn't good. It means that my primary motivation for contributing -- gaining readers -- ain't there. I might as well be in a cave somewhere, scribbling on walls, that nobody will ever read. And without this motivating factor, why would anybody else want to contribute here? This is important. One thing I've noticed: sometimes WP looks at our stuff, and ports it over if it looks better -- so at least somebody might be reading CZ's stuff.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I've found from experience that it takes a few days for Google and Bing to include any new articles, or update any additions or corrections made to an article. However WP is in the same boat, it's not that instantaneous but they have an advantage in that most of their articles are interlinked, so any visiting webcrawler is likely to pick up any changes quicker compared to CZ. We need to start creating more articles and more article interlinking to pump up our Google and Bing 'juice'. Meg Ireland 00:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * So, how are we going to fix this? I think WP has serious problems too, including huge problems with bias on controversial topics (related to the anonymity). But overall the Wikipedia model is doing a lot better out there on the web than the CZ model. This lack of readership is a huge negative for CZ in my view. So, before I'm motivated to fix up Philosophy of Spinoza (the Curley book came), I've been trying to do things to boost readership here, such as adding articles on the list (see my main page) like Acai berry which have HUGE readership on WP, and which are unique terms driving traffic (according to one study -- but who knows). Or, articles like Lady Gaga. So far, it looks like none of these actions has produced much result, but maybe this takes time, I don't know. I've asked questions like: can we import Henrik's "traffic count" tool, but haven't gotten any answers. But, if it takes importing the hottest WP articles, hopefully improving them, and seeing if this improves traffic here, then let's try it. If, Howard, you're against importing WP based on some principle of yours, then I think that's a mistake if it kills traffic; it's like shooting ourselves in the foot here. Without new contributors, without new authors and editors joining this project, CZ won't get off the ground.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My hunch is the Howard "WP style" vs "CZ style" thing is an artificial, meaningless distinction, a distraction preventing us from seeing bigger problems. Howard's concern about trying to differentiate the two encyclopedias based on the type of reference, such as "journalistic references" vs "official documents" or "think tanks" -- in my view, this is a non-issue, akin to rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic. Rather, both encyclopedias use both kinds of sources. Information is information. Journalistic sources, census data, think tanks, published studies, academic journals -- this is all good information, and both WP and CZ should use whatever sources are appropriate. If Howard is afraid of CZ losing its "distinct, quality style"; oh, hogwash. And it's clear that the two encyclopedias are copying regularly from each other, whether CZ from WP, or WP from CZ; it's all free content. I don't think the information here, or the distinct quality style is how CZ competes, or should compete, with WP. Frankly, in terms of a quality comparison between the two encyclopedias, I think WP wins hands down for authoritative content, thoroughness, diagrams, helpful internal links, informative pictures, ease of use, infoboxes, and overall content. Yes, it's sometimes wrong, sometimes poorly written, but overall it's a MUCH MORE USEFUL encyclopedia than CZ at this point. It has millions of articles. The wikilink system is extremely helpful, since if you don't understand a term, click, boom, you're on a whole new article about it; on CZ there are only redlinks. I think it behooves us to recognize this reality, and stop hiding behind some idea of "CZ has superior quality".--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The problems are long running ones and won't be fixed overnight, but will IMO eventually be fixed over time. When I look back at WP and compare it here with CZ, give me CZ anytime. I'd sooner be standing on the deck of the Titanic smoking a cigar as the band plays on (CZ), then trapped below deck with thugs, bullies and lunatics in the brig (WP). :-) Meg Ireland 00:56, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * I'd like to see CZ win, gain contributors, succeed. At this point I think it requires taking the BEST from both models and figuring out how to design something even superior. But clearly the next step is: boosting readership. And if this required sucking in all of WP's content (which is almost all excellent, in my view, compared to CZ), and starting from there, and keeping the identified status of contributors, then I think CZ would be much better off. But what we need first is some kind of critical mass. So I totally agree with Hayford about this.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:17, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * The Charter doesn't speak to or against WP. External relationships are properly the role of the elected governing bodies.


 * I'm not going to argue this with you, Hayford, much as I won't argue matters of faith. Other than in very specific situations, I am not terribly interested in fixing WP. It is fair, I think, to say that the idea of being a fork of WP has been rejected.


 * So, it is correct to tell Tom that quite a few people here have grave reservations about any significant importing from WP. You, Hayford, feel differently. Difference noted.


 * Tom, when it comes to sources, when the majority of sources on U.S. foreign policy are from journalistic sources, rather than actual international agreements, substantive reports, etc., I have a problem. In contrast, note the sourcing in Wars of Vietnam, and, at the same time, how news articles are used in more current events such as al-Shahab (insurgency), but are cross-checked with one another, and, as soon as possible, with more detailed analysis from places such as the Combating Terrorism Center and the Institute of Strategic Studies (well, my cold is not giving me the exact title of the South African group). If I wanted to read newspapers, I'd go directly to them.


 * I'm a volunteer. I'm not volunteering to fix WP. If the model is to fork WP, bye. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:23, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * My last word on the subject: even though a bunch of people don't *like* WP articles being ported in here, Thomas, they can't stop you. Just as long as you follow our written guidelines about bringing in WP articles --I'm all for that.  But if you just bring them in, dump them, and leave them, hen, in 1 week, I fear, I as a Constable can be asked to delete them without further notice. So -- bring 'em in AND improve them! Hayford Peirce 00:28, 6 March 2010 (UTC)


 * As a serious suggestion, to learn CZ ways, it is probably better to get through a couple of original articles, rather than to concentrate on de-WP'ing articles. This is, in no way, directed to Tom's work. I started cleaning up a 2007 import, Quiverfull, which really was never improved, but I may well give up. I wonder how many other "big import" articles are in that state? Howard C. Berkowitz 00:33, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

(undent) As far as search engine hits, interlinking is certainly a wise idea, but original article titles are also useful. To my surprise, restructuring of the United States Army came in first on Google -- and that is the official U.S. Army term. Wars of Vietnam was fourth; I very carefully selected that as a superset of Vietnam War. Howard C. Berkowitz 00:45, 6 March 2010 (UTC)

Continuation of discussion
(break for easier editing)

Well, great discussion. Opinions noted. I've found that I can usually write fresh articles as fast as I can port ones. I'll strive to balance what I'm hearing from all sides. I think it would be cool to keep some up-to-date list which shows "original article titles" that we could create, like what I have on my front user page. Cool Howard that you did the "restructuring" article -- I googled it and it came up on the first page. Good job. And thanks Meg for your comment about the crawlers.--Thomas Wright Sulcer 00:58, 6 March 2010 (UTC)