User:Ark25/Blog

Paid editing

Sometimes I think about paid editing and I think there should be cultural funds for editing Wikipedia. For example the government of US should pay a team of say 50-100 Wikipedians to do a certain kind of edits which can include:

Documenting museums, monuments and other culturally significant things
Documenting government institutions
Adding all kind of statistics into Wikipedia articles or lists. For example the article Corn production in the United States should contain a list of corn production every year, by total output and by surface cultivated. Or, for example, the total imports and exports to other countries, for example in the article Germany–United States relations there should be a list with the imports and exports from/to Germany, by year, for all years where there are available information. Such data should be collected from National Statistics Institutes or Associations, like for example National Institute of Statistics (Romania) or American Statistical Association
Taking free photos with cities, buildings, monuments or geographical features. It will simply enrich our cultural heritage.
Taking (free) photos with celebrities and politicians or any other people that makes sense to take photos with. I think that makes sense, such photos are culturally significant for the future generations

— Ark25 (talk) 13:44, 8 March 2014 (UTC)

Proposal: Wikipedia talk:Paid-contribution disclosure#Proposal - paid editors paid or funded by Wikipedia - 2016-11-04

Experience has shown that paid and COI editors are, in general, incapable of writing NPOV copy. - because the paid editors were not stimulated by Wikipedia. Once a paid editor knows that they risk to lose Wikipedia certification by breaking NPOV, they will be very careful about it. Once a paid editor gets a Wikipedia certificate, they will be careful not to lose it, because the certificate makes the clients trust them. You lose your certificate == you lose your clients == not good.
It is unreasonable to expect people to edit counter to their own financial best interest nor is anyone objective in regards to themselves or their works. - It's unreasonable to expect them to add controversial aspects about themselves, yes. But it's quite reasonable to expect them to be accurate in the things they do add in the articles. Again, not being accurate can be "ouchy" for paid editors. Also, people writing about themselves won't have to add controversial things about themselves, because others will do that.
Any organization created to edit Wikipedia for money will, over time, behave ways that benefit that organization not Wikipedia. - not true, the USA government pays private companies to do scientific research and the way many such companies behave benefits both the company and the government.

The bottom line is: this subject was treated superficially by the WMF and by the Wikipedia community, and the current conclusions about the topic are just the same - superficial. It's all about pressuring the paid editors to be responsible - and the WMF and the Wikipedia community have all the means to do that. Throwing statements like "people are not responsible" is not going to help, but finding solutions to make people responsible is.

Idealism is great but we have already seen the results of just AGF in this area - assuming good faith is not enough. It must be complemented by rules. In the USA for example, the legal system assumes that the people are innocent by default (and that's not Idealism). But that doesn't imply that there shouldn't be laws for the people to respect and no activities for encouraging the people to become responsible. The community should do it's part of the job and then clean paid editing will become possible. Superficial rules or lack of rules leads to a messy community. Clear rules leads to a functional community. — Ark25 (talk) 02:03, 9 November 2016 (UTC)

See also

Short documentary videos

If Wikipedia would have more money, it would be awesome to invest into making small documentary videos. For example a video with the simulation of the path of the Moon on the sky, as seen from India, Australia, US and Argentina for example. Or simulations with the path of the sun on the sky. The path of the sun is quite different as seen at equator from how it can be seen at the poles, for example. Simulating those movements and explaining in detail would be absolutely awesome. Also GIF images like this GIF showing the movement of Venus around the sun are crucial for understanding space and astronomy. — Ark25 (talk) 20:01, 31 May 2014 (UTC)

How It's Made videos

The How It's Made show has very nice videos about various stuff.

If the videos are available online, then they should be linked in the appropriate articles. For example Accordion#External links should contain the link to How It's Made: Accordions
The videos should be carefully archived, at the best resolution possible. After 95 years, they enter into the Public Domain and then they should be made available for free, on YouTube or other site like this.

I found a list of How It's Made videos here. I'm not sure if it's the same show. The quality of the videos doesn't seem to be very high. I can't link to a particular video, I can only link to the list of videos. Maybe the videos can be found on another site too. — Ark25 (talk) 12:50, 7 September 2014 (UTC)

Nice quotes

Hope for the best and prepare for the worst

Similar faces

Pavel Kiselyov — Alexander Lukashenko — Vasile Alecsandri — ro:Ionel Blănculescu — Apostol Mărgărit
- Liviu Cornel Babeș — Toni Grecu
George Orwell — Henri Barbusse
Alexandru Ioan Cuza — Nicolae Grigorescu — Barbu Știrbei — Gheorghe Bibescu
Vasile Pârvan — Lucian Boia — Daniel Goldin
Haifa Wehbe — Rakhi Sawant (image)

— Ark25 (talk) 00:52, 22 September 2014 (UTC)

Archive.is

— Ark25 (talk) 13:44, 26 October 2014 (UTC)

Scientific facts

The gastronomical termodynamics of omelette making is a process that can be applied to describe, with unmatched clarity, real life, human psycho-social interaction. In fact, this application is used on a daily basis, vastly outnumbering any other applications of the process, becoming de facto standard in the field. Or to put it in other words: If the gastronomical termodynamics of omelette making can't explain a particular human interaction, nothing else can.

The heat transfer involved in the process can accurately predict who will be the next one who will be "fript" (a Romanian word vaguely resembling "roasted"). So be careful when choosing the frying pan you are going to jump into! In case of a wrong choice, your "eggs" won't be spared! — Ark25 (talk) 03:37, 5 July 2015 (UTC)

{This is a pamphlet about the situation at the Romanian Wikipedia, in July 2015}

Corrector

On smaller Wikipedias, abuses are not uncommon. There are many instances of users blocked abusively. Therefore the WMF should give to the honest users the opportunity to prove that they are capable to act in good faith and to do useful edits. The WMF should create a special category of users, named for example "Corrector" or "Restricted user", who will be only allowed to do the following types of edits: correcting misspellings and punctuation errors, converting bare links into complete references, adding categories, creating disambiguation pages.

Once an editor is blocked, they should be allowed to apply for the "Corrector" status. If the edits of a Corrector needs checking (their good faith is not assumed by default and it must be proved this time) and that's considered a time sink, then let all the Correctors share a maximum of 30 edits per month. If the corrector doesn't respect the restrictions, they should be blocked, of course. If there are more than 30 Correctors, then give to each of them just one edit per month. If that's still too much, then—fine—give them two edits per year.

If the corrector is blocked, they should be able to defend the decision in front of the entire WMF community. You don't need to know the glyphs of another language to understand that such a minor edit is constructive or disruptive. The WMF should provide a minimum of safety for the honest users. There is no excuse like "we don't understand the language and we don't know the rules of that community". No matter the particularities of a specific Wikipedia community, minor edits are universally valid. All the Wikipedia communities must respect a set of minimum and universal principles, like respecting copyrights, no death threats, no racism, etc. They should also respect the right of the honest users to make themselves useful, with minor edits.

Not everyone is good enough to be an editor. But, with a minimum effort, anyone can learn how to become a corrector.

Allowing abuses means encouraging them. Allowing the (abused) users to apply for the Corrector status is a good way to limit the abuses of the administrators. — Ark25 (talk) 21:21, 31 January 2017 (UTC)

In my view, secret of the success of the Western world lies in the good life and safety it provides to it's own citizens. The skilled workers come to the West because they feel safe and comfortable working there, and that's the reason why they are more productive than the workers in the other countries. Creativity and productivity are based on safety. Similarly, the Wikipedia users should feel the safety and the minimum comfort of knowing that, as long as they act in good faith, they can feel safe that at least they can make minor contributions.

Sure, every population has it's own distinct culture and features, and they are free to practice them - on their own land. However, when they go to a different place, they have to respect the rules of their guests. On their own servers, they can make their own rules. But as long as they contribute to the Wikipedia, they should respect the Wikipedia rules. Therefore I think that Wikimedia should have a set of rules that all Wikipedias, in all languages, should respect. Defending the users who act in good faith and providing them a minimum safety should be one of those rules.

Another general-purpose rule would be to have a prescription term for blocking, to avoid situations where an abusive administrator can block a user for edits made years ago. It happened to me, to be blocked for edits made almost one year ago. Sure, it's nice to be part of an environment where you feel free, safe, and where there are almost no rules at all and where rules are not needed. If all the people would apply common sense, then we would not need any rules. But since that's not happening, I think that rules are quite necessary. — Ark25 (talk) 03:03, 27 April 2017 (UTC)

The users on the small Wikipedias are in general living in countries plagued by corruption and poverty. They come wasted from work, they are depleted of energy because they can hardly find a solution to pay for their bills and basic expenses, and above all, they are very confused. They do not have a huge amount of time and energy to invest in endless and fruitless battles on Wikipedia. They just want to contribute, whenever possible. Yes, they lack solidarity, which is the key for ending the abuses of the admins when such things happen - but it's the constant hardship that prevent them to harness enough energy and understanding to start acting united. They don't have the peace of mind the Westerners enjoy. You can judge them from the height of the Western lifestyle, where things look clear and simple, because the Western life is much more safe and comfortable, giving to the individuals the time and the opportunity to see things clearly. But that's totally outside empathy. In order to understand them, you have to actually put yourself in their shoes.

Instead of providing a safe heaven for abusive administrators, I think the Wikipedia's Terms of Use should focus on providing a safe place for the regular users, so they can do at least some minor edits and to prove that they can act in good faith. Even if that implies sacrificing the awesomeness of a short and essential Terms of Use which is actually highly impractical and pretty much utopian from the point of view of the regular user contributing on a small Wikipedia.

How many times the users were blocked as a result of abuses? And how many of them left because of such abuses but they would have stayed if given the chance to make at least some minor contributions? I really think it's worth to look for finding answers to those questions. — Ark25 (talk) 14:38, 19 May 2017 (UTC)

Misc

funny message at Karyn Kupcinet#External links

misc templates: {{more footnotes}}

Lists of books

ZOMG, amigad, can you believe it? Som ppl actully make collections on Wikipedia. Squaaaash!!!

Frank Sinatra bibliography

— Ark25 (talk) 03:01, 28 July 2017 (UTC)