Mailing List Archive

David Gerard wrote:

>On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>As Erik pointed out, it is very easy to make a hoax seem legitimate if you
>>cite a phony print source. What's not needed is new rules involving the use
>>of print sources, but to utilise something we had all along: Google.
>>Something we could do is Google the title of the book being referenced, and
>>then see if it exists (beyond being mentioned in wiki mirrors). If it
>>doesn't exist, then we take further action. One thing we could do is for
>>every print source approved in an article, we can note that said print
>>sources have been verified to be true on the talk page (via some sort of
>>yellow talk page box). Comments?
>>
>>
>I use lotsa references that aren't in Google and probably never will
>be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world between 1923 and 1995
>in that category.
>
Don't despair! If we wait long enough for them to go into the public
domain they can be added to Wikisource.

Ec


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James Hare wrote:

>For those books not mentioned in Google, we would of course do our best to
>compile a list. Then once the list is made, knowing Google, it would only be
>a matter of time that the list of old books would be listed on Google,
>therefore making my testing mechanism work.
>
>If we were to compile a list of these books, we'd probably have to protect
>these pages from editing to prevent misuse/fraud.
>
Apart from the english languaged world there is a whole world of books
printed in 100's of other languages and 10's of different scripts. As
soon as you look at things outside of the Western world google becomes
extremely flawed.

Waerth
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On 04/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:

> >be (e.g. for indie rock). There's a whole world between 1923 and 1995
> >in that category.

> Don't despair! If we wait long enough for them to go into the public
> domain they can be added to Wikisource.


In the US? Shirley you jest!


- d.
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Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>
>>For those books not mentioned in Google, we would of course do our best to
>>compile a list. Then once the list is made, knowing Google, it would only be
>>a matter of time that the list of old books would be listed on Google,
>>therefore making my testing mechanism work.
>>
>>
>It would be simpler just to toss the name into copac.ac.uk or
>catalog.loc.gov and see if it appears! But this still doesn't tell us
>anything beyond "I am claiming this book supports me".
>
Absolutely! And that claim is only sometimes a hoax. It can as easily
be a good-faith misinterpretation of the information.

>It still doesn't get past the fact that I belive David when he says
>"This band does indeed appear on page seventeen of Australian Indie
>Rock Monthly, August 1979", but am slightly less inclined to believe
>the unknown chap claiming he's found something earthshattering in a
>1937 issue of a Russian underground newspaper...
>
It takes a long time to build trust, and there are still many long
standing Wikipedians whose judgement I would question on some issues but
I would trust on others. I'm sure we all keep personal lists of that
source. The newbie who quotes the 1937 Russian newspaper in support of
his point could very well be right. It would a gross assumption of bad
faith to reject his citation solely on the basis that he is a newbie.

>Fundamentally, use of an offline (or subscription, etc) source is a
>good and sensible thing, but it requires a modicum of trust that we're
>getting a reliable link between the page and the information quoted;
>we can't get around this by preparing lists of reliable and unreliable
>texts, we can only get around this by someone "trusted" saying yes,
>I've looked at that, it's there.
>
Everything should be checked and re-checked independently, but that's
only an ideal. We're already having difficulties getting software that
gives us a stable version that has only been checked for common
vandalism. In time we should go much further than that, and allow
statistically based algorithms that will give a measure of probably
accuracy based on the review of multiple readers.

Ec

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Ray Saintonge wrote:
> Andrew Gray wrote:
>
>
>
>>Fundamentally, use of an offline (or subscription, etc) source is a
>>good and sensible thing, but it requires a modicum of trust that we're
>>getting a reliable link between the page and the information quoted;
>>we can't get around this by preparing lists of reliable and unreliable
>>texts, we can only get around this by someone "trusted" saying yes,
>>I've looked at that, it's there.
>>
>
> Everything should be checked and re-checked independently, but that's
> only an ideal. We're already having difficulties getting software that
> gives us a stable version that has only been checked for common
> vandalism. In time we should go much further than that, and allow
> statistically based algorithms that will give a measure of probably
> accuracy based on the review of multiple readers.
>

Yes, a blind-vote citation-checking system in which aggregate results
are captured. Once nice property of such a system is that the votes of
good-faith, competent citation-checkers will correlate strongly with one
another, while the votes of bad-faith and/or incompetent checkers will
have a basically random distribution. This, of course, assumes no
widespread collusion among checkers, but in most cases such collusion
will be more trouble than its worth. In addition, it would be possible
to seed the citations shown to checkers (even on an individual basis)
with random false citations which they would be expected to flag as
incorrect/fabricated. Access to open bibliographic catalogs would allow
for the creation of completely random but quite legitimate-seeming
citations, as it is only a matter a randomly picking a work returned by
querying on the article's main subjects.

I think it might also be useful to use the results of citation-checking
as a feed into some sort of trust ecology. Fact-checking is mostly
tedious, unrewarding work, and so the users who have shown themselves to
be competent and reliable at it are probably going to be trustworthy or
at least good-faith in other areas as well. This would of course not be
the only input to a user's "trust rating", but probably one of the more
significant ones.

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--- Jonathan Leybovich <jleybov@yahoo.com> wrote:

> Ray Saintonge wrote:
> > Andrew Gray wrote:
> >
> >
> >
> >>Fundamentally, use of an offline (or subscription,
> etc) source is a
> >>good and sensible thing, but it requires a modicum
> of trust that we're
> >>getting a reliable link between the page and the
> information quoted;
> >>we can't get around this by preparing lists of
> reliable and unreliable
> >>texts, we can only get around this by someone
> "trusted" saying yes,
> >>I've looked at that, it's there.
> >>
> >
> > Everything should be checked and re-checked
> independently, but that's
> > only an ideal. We're already having difficulties
> getting software that
> > gives us a stable version that has only been
> checked for common
> > vandalism. In time we should go much further than
> that, and allow
> > statistically based algorithms that will give a
> measure of probably
> > accuracy based on the review of multiple readers.
> >
>
> Yes, a blind-vote citation-checking system in which
> aggregate results
> are captured. Once nice property of such a system
> is that the votes of
> good-faith, competent citation-checkers will
> correlate strongly with one
> another, while the votes of bad-faith and/or
> incompetent checkers will
> have a basically random distribution. This, of
> course, assumes no
> widespread collusion among checkers, but in most
> cases such collusion
> will be more trouble than its worth. In addition,
> it would be possible
> to seed the citations shown to checkers (even on an
> individual basis)
> with random false citations which they would be
> expected to flag as
> incorrect/fabricated. Access to open bibliographic
> catalogs would allow
> for the creation of completely random but quite
> legitimate-seeming
> citations, as it is only a matter a randomly picking
> a work returned by
> querying on the article's main subjects.
>
> I think it might also be useful to use the results
> of citation-checking
> as a feed into some sort of trust ecology.
> Fact-checking is mostly
> tedious, unrewarding work, and so the users who have
> shown themselves to
> be competent and reliable at it are probably going
> to be trustworthy or
> at least good-faith in other areas as well. This
> would of course not be
> the only input to a user's "trust rating", but
> probably one of the more
> significant ones.
>
>

I think this is an absolutely brilliant idea!

Birgitte SB

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On 06/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
> Andrew Gray wrote:
>
> >On 03/10/06, James Hare <messedrocker@gmail.com> wrote:

> >It would be simpler just to toss the name into copac.ac.uk or
> >catalog.loc.gov and see if it appears! But this still doesn't tell us
> >anything beyond "I am claiming this book supports me".
> >
> Absolutely! And that claim is only sometimes a hoax. It can as easily
> be a good-faith misinterpretation of the information.

But of course.

The problem is, the original proposal here was to deal with people
making up sources - an explicitly bad-faith action. But the suggested
system is a system that is equally suceptible to being gamed in
bad-faith. You want to game this? You make a false claim with regards
to a reputable (but hard to identify) work. Done.

So instituting this system wouldn't deal with the bad-faith people in
any way, and just create vast amounts of (admittedly automatible, but
still) make-work for "verifiers". Which doesn't really help the
project, it just plasters around the original problem...

> >It still doesn't get past the fact that I belive David when he says
> >"This band does indeed appear on page seventeen of Australian Indie
> >Rock Monthly, August 1979", but am slightly less inclined to believe
> >the unknown chap claiming he's found something earthshattering in a
> >1937 issue of a Russian underground newspaper...
> >
> It takes a long time to build trust, and there are still many long
> standing Wikipedians whose judgement I would question on some issues but
> I would trust on others. I'm sure we all keep personal lists of that
> source. The newbie who quotes the 1937 Russian newspaper in support of
> his point could very well be right. It would a gross assumption of bad
> faith to reject his citation solely on the basis that he is a newbie.

Oh, indeed. It's just... there's a difference between "assuming good
faith" and "assuming trust"

--
- Andrew Gray
andrew.gray@dunelm.org.uk
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Andrew Gray wrote:

>On 06/10/06, Ray Saintonge <saintonge@telus.net> wrote:
>
>
>>Andrew Gray wrote
>>
>>>It would be simpler just to toss the name into copac.ac.uk or
>>>catalog.loc.gov and see if it appears! But this still doesn't tell us
>>>anything beyond "I am claiming this book supports me".
>>>
>>>
>>Absolutely! And that claim is only sometimes a hoax. It can as easily
>>be a good-faith misinterpretation of the information.
>>
>>
>But of course.
>
>The problem is, the original proposal here was to deal with people
>making up sources - an explicitly bad-faith action. But the suggested
>system is a system that is equally suceptible to being gamed in
>bad-faith. You want to game this? You make a false claim with regards
>to a reputable (but hard to identify) work. Done.
>
>So instituting this system wouldn't deal with the bad-faith people in
>any way, and just create vast amounts of (admittedly automatible, but
>still) make-work for "verifiers". Which doesn't really help the
>project, it just plasters around the original problem...
>
>
>>>It still doesn't get past the fact that I belive David when he says
>>>"This band does indeed appear on page seventeen of Australian Indie
>>>Rock Monthly, August 1979", but am slightly less inclined to believe
>>>the unknown chap claiming he's found something earthshattering in a
>>>1937 issue of a Russian underground newspaper...
>>>
>>>
>>It takes a long time to build trust, and there are still many long
>>standing Wikipedians whose judgement I would question on some issues but
>>I would trust on others. I'm sure we all keep personal lists of that
>>source. The newbie who quotes the 1937 Russian newspaper in support of
>>his point could very well be right. It would a gross assumption of bad
>>faith to reject his citation solely on the basis that he is a newbie.
>>
>>
>Oh, indeed. It's just... there's a difference between "assuming good
>faith" and "assuming trust"
>
To me what it all comes down to is that absolutely everything needs to
be fact checked and re-checked, but that may be a total impossibility.
So we have to priorize our checking. Counterintuitive material,.
negative comments about a person and familiarity with the author are all
going to be factors in establishing our priorities. From the checker's
perspective, familiarity with the subject matter and access to sources
are also going to be factors.

Ec

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