Benutzer:Pjacobi/PE

Copied from soon to be deleted page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Anville/People%27s_Encyclopedia under GFDL. --Pjacobi 17:39, 1. Okt 2006 (CEST)

Neronian "so-called Sappho" contemplating a codex

The People's Encyclopedia of Physics and Mathematics is a project designed to counterbalance various undesirable trends which scientifically-oriented editors have observed in the Wikipedia. Anville conceived the notion while visiting Huntsville, Alabama, and later described the plan to fellow physics enthusiasts Byrgenwulf and Hillman as "a fork of all physics- and maths-related articles to create an off-site stable version archive and a home for appropriate original research". Membership in the elite class of People's Encyclopedia editors would be restricted to those with some qualifications in the fields which the Encyclopedia covers. The idea attracted positive remarks from the various individuals who read about it, and Anville is currently trying to make good on this grandiose scheme.

Anville believes that a subject-specific encyclopedia has several advantages over Wikipedia forks like Larry Sanger's "Citizendium". One such advantage is that the People's Encyclopedia has definite milestones: it is easy to conceive of a printed edition, for example, covering physics and mathematics up to (say) the early graduate level. Anville believes that the image of solid future successes can bring a moral uplift to those who work on the project. Anville had a door slammed in the face at summer camp, right at the age when many children are the same height as door handles, leaving the young science lover with a lightning-shaped scar over one eyebrow and many, many strange ideas.

Origins

On the Talk page for disaffected user DV8 2XL, Anville wrote the following:

While I could and probably would dispute various individual points DV8 2XL and Hillman have raised (I'm a born contrarian), I find myself in agreement with their overall conclusions. I will probably leave the WP out of general burnout before these issues drive me away, but that is just a matter of my quirky personality and the trouble it causes. For the moment, let me just say that CH's remark about a "stabilization/bastion" scheme echoes some recent thoughts of my own. Last week or thereabouts, I thought of a way to implement such a scheme without a "political seachange"; perhaps the next time I have extremely important work to procrastinate upon, I'll be able to organize my thoughts on this into a nice essay and sample the community responses. Anville 22:34, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Being a lazy fool,Vorlage:Fact Anville delayed actually writing this "nice essay" until the Wikipedia Signpost carried an announcement about Larry Sanger's "Citizendium". In the interval, Hillman posted to Anville's talk page the following note:

You wrote "I thought of a way to implement such a scheme without a 'political seachange' ". Seriously, I would like to hear that! ---CH 22:49, 28 August 2006 (UTC)

Discussion with Hillman

Copied from this revision (21:06, 20 September 2006) of Hillman's Talk page.

What do you think about Larry Sanger's new "Citizendium"? Aside from the horribly glitzy name, it resembles an idea I was thinking of proposing to the WikiProject Physics and Mathematics people: basically, a fork of all physics- and maths-related articles to create an off-site stable version archive and a home for appropriate original research, like debunkings of spoon molestation and anti-conservationism. My proposed name was going to be The People's Encyclopedia of Physics, which at least sounds appropriately revolutionary. Anville 15:46, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Anville,

I haven't looked into this or done any further work on my "wikipolitical" essays because the seemingly unending Mestel negotiation has taken all my time and energy. Sanger's reaction to my criticism of recent activity here at Wikipedia by his boss at Digital Universe suggests that I myself would be unwelcome at Citizendium, and I presume the same goes for Digital Universe itself.

Why not go ahead with your proposal? Even if the neccessary kernel of financial support, raw enthusiasm, and technological ability does not materialize, it should be helpful to all the forks to have multiple well thought-out and well-expressed visions of a free but reliable on-line digital encyclopedia available. I happen to like the idea of focusing on an encyclopedia of physics. I think that one of the things which helped Wikipedia grow in the early days was the materialization of a kernel of like-minded editors who shared a common vision. Likewise, I think that for any of the forks to succeed, their sociopolitical processes will have to function smoothly, nuturing a sense of community rather than mutual hostility, and this is most likely to evolve if the community shares certain (possibly initially unexpressed) core values. I suspect that attempts to create a universal encyclopedia competing with Wikipedia may be difficult to inititiate, even with millions of dollars of financial support, as DU's woes suggest. I look instead to the example of the arXiv, which started with physics, branched out to mathematics, and is slowly but surely (I think) become a universal clearinghouse at least for mathematics and the hard sciences.---CH 18:12, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

First, thanks for the prompt reply!

I started thinking along these lines after I realized just how much time I'd put into revamping the Bogdanov Affair article. Having pushed several of my pieces to FA status, I figured I could do the same with the Bogdanov write-up. . . or at least I could if the B. brothers' flotilla of meat- and sockpuppets weren't continually dropping by to destabilize it. (FA criterion 1(e) seems to rule out articles with a big ArbCom banner at the top.) How, then, would work on that topic or any one like it get the recognition it deserves? Yes, this is horribly vain of me, but I know I'm not the only person who has "thrown away" hours of effort in similar situations, and I can be vain on their behalf as well.

Then, too, there's the Original Research concern. I've gotten better at sticking to this rule; in my earlier days, I suspect I crossed the line more than once (e.g., in Three Laws of Robotics), but hopefully never in too detrimental a way. It's not an easy problem to escape: even if one tries merely to systematize and summarize knowledge, what about those illustrative analogies and clever metaphors which make a physics article comprehensible to the lay reader? If pictures are allowed, why not similies? In the reductio ad nonsensicam limit, what about converting units from American to SI? Then there are the places where the interests of truth demand that we utter original speech: electromagnetic drives which violate momentum conservation spring to mind. . . .

The failed FAC on Redshift made me think about the different requirements we expect for Wikipedia articles and other expository writing. An editor not "versed in the art" can demand so many more footnotes than any physicist would think to provide! Not only does this impede the progression of technical pages up into the FA realm, I believe it would also discourage any expert editor who ran into the problem.

On the most general, philozawfigal grounds, there is a concern of symmetry. We recognize that Wikipedia cannot exist in a vacuum: it must feed upon verifiable sources. We know that it needs input, but other than keeping a list of mirrors and forks, we never address the issue of output. Just where does our content go once it's been generated?

My fondest and most vain dream is to create an actual book. Something on paper which lives between heavy covers, with a Wordsmith-in-Chief and an Editorial Board listed in the front matter. (Would that attract more expert editors to the project — the chance to have your name in lights? I have the suspicion that whatever else we do, actively recruiting new contributors has to be part of the solution.)

Anyway, I detect that I'm beginning to ramble, and I've got to be off now. Cheerio, and feel free to send thoughts my way. Be seeing you. Anville 18:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

(Edit conflict with anon)

I always enjoy hearing from you, Anville, although I'm too depressed to write very much at the moment. I think we must both swallow bitter medicine by walking away from all the work we put into WP. Contributing to a utopian social experiment was an act of faith, and such actions seem to invariably result in disillusionment.

I hope you write your book. A good book is a much more valuable contribution than Wikipedia articles, and book authors are not discouraged from displays of virtuosity or humor :-/ Of course, writing a book is also an act of faith; it is often not clear in advance that the audience imagined by the author even exists, much less whether they would read the book, much less enjoy it.

Be this as it may, I don't know why more authors are not using Wikimedia as a stepping stone to conventional tex documents, since I think it can help keep up motivation while incorporating figures and mathematical elements into the text. I never have gotten around to playing with this myself, though, so I do not actually know how to "close" a wiki to outside editors; I assume it can be done, however.---CH 19:06, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion with Byrgenwulf

Copied from this revision (17:33, 21 September 2006) of Byrgenwulf's Talk page.

What do you think about Larry Sanger's new "Citizendium"? Aside from the horribly glitzy name, it resembles an idea I was thinking of proposing to the WikiProject Physics and Mathematics people: basically, a fork of all physics- and maths-related articles to create an off-site stable version archive and a home for appropriate original research, like debunkings of spoon molestation and anti-conservationism. My proposed name was going to be The People's Encyclopedia of Physics, which sounds appropriately revolutionary. Anville 15:45, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

Ave. My accursed internet connection has been ridiculously slow since yesterday- nominally connected, but too slow to load a page before a gateway timeout. It's like they replaced the good thick copper cable in the street with a chain of paperclips or something (which is not out of the question, this being Africa an' all: there's good money in melted-down copper cable). But it seems to have come right now, so I hope this page will be able to "submit". Hell, I may even be able to do other "work", as well (I want to email a rant to New Scientist, among other things).

I find the name "Citizens' Compendium" to be reminiscent of those cheap Victorian non-fiction serials. Actually, I am not sure that there were cheap Victorian non-fiction serials, but if there were, I am sure that one would have been called "The Citizen's Compendium of Great and Wonderful Knowledge" or something. "The People's Encyclopedia of Physics", on the other hand, is positively Leninist. And the editorial policy sounds good too.

The thing with forking off just the physics and maths articles would be that the product would stand or fall on reputation (not that that's a bad thing). It would not have the pulling power of Wikipedia, and nor would it appear as high on Google (from what I understand of their magic algorithm), which means that the "casual surfer" would be less likely to use it. But if it built up a good reputation over time, then people would deliberately go to it, rather than Wikipedia, when looking for trustworthy information on the topics it covers. It's also unlikely to need massive server attention (because it's not listing characters who make cameo appearances in once-off TV sitcom pilots), which means that a university would possibly be willing to host it - or, as a random thought, one of the American Physical Society's units ("Forum for the Public and Science" or "Forum for Physics and Education" or something, I forget) might just take an interest, since they seem to have bugger all else better to do with their time other than run seminars about political correctness. Similarly to the Stanford Encyclopaedia of Philosophy, the arXiv, and the PhilSci archives (and no doubt others), hosting a project like that could bring a perceived "prestige" to a university or other institution if it were done right.

I read what you wrote on Hillman's talk page regarding original research, and I must agree. The way I see it, an encyclopaedia article should have an "authoritative" feel to it: the reader should come away after reading it, feeling that they have had the "final word" on the nuts and bolts of the subject, and all the additional reading they might do is merely filling in the footnotes. The illustrative examples and so forth which you mentioned in your note to Hillman form, to my mind, an indispensable part of developing this feel...I am currently quite stuck with my RQM article, because I feel that I am limited to providing summaries of existing material (which is pointless, really), lest any additional comments without sources, as true and valid as they may be, will be removed (or at least potentially indefensible to interfering critics) as "original research". But, in discussing the possibility of an RQM Wikipedia article, the idea was that it would be good to try to angle it for the layman or student, who cannot simply pick up a physics journal paper and make sense of it without Herculean effort: even the Stanford Encyclopaedia article on RQM is quite conceptually dense for someone not used to digesting material on that level. Since no-one has published any form of popularisation of the idea, a "simple terms" article would be either mostly unsourced "original research", or pathetically short. And let us not forget that one of the roots of the word "encyclopaedia" is, after all, the "-paedia" bit, which implies a teaching element to the enterprise.

Such an encyclopaedia should also provide a credible information source for the professional who could find information elsewhere, but for whom quickly going to the encyclopaedia to find out what the on earth the greedy algorithm could be, in straightforward but technically sound terms, is far preferable to wading through endless Google pages of nonsense to try to find the webpage of some kind academic who's stuck up his class notes or something; or (heaven forbid) actually having to use a library to obtain the information, which usually involves getting up from one's desk. And something they can even, maybe, feel comfortable citing as a reference in their work, for the odd bit of information. Such a resource would be marvellous indeed. But it could never happen as long as there are articles on EmDrives and Whizzbangs which apotheosise their subjects out of all proportion, or if in order to report sensibly on the Bogdanovs an editor has to be subjected to endless circuses of sockpuppetry, arbitration, and out-and-out abuse.

There is clearly a body of people who have both the expertise and the will to build something worthwhile, and who will do it for the love of their subject and the instinct to teach. There is, so far as I know, no real "encyclopaedia" of physics, even in print - the closest thing I can think of is the Feynman lectures, and a few "dictionaries" and handbooks of equations and what have you. Limiting it to "expert" editors alone could be disastrous: I am sure that most would consider writing an article, say, on quadratic equations a waste of their precious time: but it is something that an undergraduate might enjoy (unless undergrads are also "experts": I suppose it's relative to the subject matter in question). But, as seems to be the case here, most of the contributions would probably come from postgrad/postdoc sorts, who have the knowledge, the time and the motive to write for it. Forking the existing Wikipedia material would, of course, give an excellent corpus on which to build. And if one day it crystallised into a print form, well all the better: I think that would be a true achievement, and far more of a "gift to humanity" than a free website that anyone can edit.

In short, I think you should move ahead with your "People's Encyclopedia of Physics". A sterling idea. Power to your elbows, and let me know what I can do: I would very much like to see something like this come to fruition.

As far as the Citizendium itself goes, if nothing else it would an improvement over the current mess here. If Sanger can find a way of maintaining control over the whole thing...although his idea of having subject-expert "editors" who have final say on content is a very good one. I suppose the best way to try to secure its integrity would be to sign up for the mailing lists now, and let one's voice be heard in the various discussions pertaining to policy formation and so on. I certainly don't see how it could be worse than Wikipedia, since it will be copying the content from here. I think the major problem would probably be winning over contributors (ironically, this may be harder for the Citizendium than it would be for your idea). But I am certainly looking forward to seeing how it all pans out.

Now, I must attend to the anonymous IP troll who deposited his email address on my userpage, demanding an explanation as to why I reverted his addition to the quantum mechanics article, ostensibly "proving" QM to be false because diamond is a harmonic oscillator which will have 271K energy even at absolute zero due to null oscillations or somesuch nonsense. Gah. I wouldn't mind actually explaining this to the person (since he might not just be trolling, but might be deeply interested in the subject and trying to see where he's gone wrong in his understanding, albeit in a "novel" way), but ye gods it could turn into a marathon, and for what? Byrgenwulf 12:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

I could temporarily fake institutional approval by getting a .mit.edu domain name. That's just a function of still having friends who go to school there and have lots of bandwidth. Alternatively — and this is only a stab in the dark — I may be able to interest the New England Complex Systems Institute in the idea. Having spoken with their president about the WP, I can testify that his impression is that the science coverage has in fact decayed in recent months. (Though complex-systems people naturally find "distributed content generation" a fascinating notion, the sensible ones realize that the first trick we try isn't necessarily the one which will work!) In the first case, i.e., hosting for now somewhere on the MIT network, I could set the topic boundaries wherever I'd like, for instance restricting the People's Encyclopaedia to physics and mathematics. Hosting with NECSI would probably mean that the coverage would naturally expand to cover all the natural sciences, since they are by nature very interdisciplinary people.

Perhaps a first trial run should focus just on the physics and mathematics. After all, that is where I myself have the most competence to decide what should go, what should stay, which articles should be merged, etc. On top of that, having a well-defined goal — "a complete systemization of physics and mathematics through the undergraduate level" — may create amongst its editors the impression that the project has a chance to succeed.

My first thought on a definition for "expert" was fairly broad: anyone currently enrolled in or graduated from an undergrad physics/mathematics program. This was the only decent balance I could imagine striking between the need to find qualified editors and the need to find lots of editors. (One of my housemates, 18.224.0.59 (Diskussion • Beiträge • gelöschte Beiträge • SBL-Log • Sperr-Logbuch • globale Beiträge{{Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht/Auflagen und Maßnahmen/Vorlage|18.224.0.59}} • sperren • Whois • GeoIP • RBLs), suggests extending invitations to people who have edited physics articles here; of course, most of his edits here stem from a single drunken night last December.) I think a hierarchy of priviliges tied to academic advancement might be more complexity than is really worthwhile, although we'll need some kind of "administrator" set to do the sort of tasks admins do around here. At the most, I forsee three levels: editors, administrators and the Editorial Board, the last of which might be drawn from the WikiProject Physics crowd and/or have higher qualifications (e.g., at least one degree to your name).

Another idea just quantum-fluctuated into the vacuum of my brain: it might prove worthwhile to contact prominent science-oriented bloggers (who are already addicted to generating text content, it appears).

Time to ping some blokes and see how much I can get in motion. Of course, mine is the first inertia I must overcome — time for more caffeine! Anville 14:25, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Personally, I find the best way is not to plan, to just do. That way the flustered panic and the feeling of having to keep my head above water forces me to act. But then I rival Fabius Cunctator in ability to procrastinate.

I think your idea of having a clearly defined goal is a good one: come up with a vision for what you want the thing to be, and then you can form policies, guidelines etc. so as to maximise the ease with which the goal is attained (and, as you point out, assess progress, which is also important). One problem with limiting it to "undergrad" level, though, is the question of just what undergraduate level is...should quantum chromodynamics be included? Is that taught at undergraduate level? It certainly isn't in South Africa, but then this country is quite backward. But QCD is the sort of thing people might want to look up in an encyclopaedia of physics, I think. And similarly with maths...the delineation between maths and formal logic: does set theory get included? An undergrad subject, for sure, but one which I, at least, learnt in formal logic, not in maths, although it is of seminal importance for questions in the foundations of maths (and useful in other places, too). I hate drawing lines, personally, probably because I can't.

The "ranks" of editors, and your requirements for them, sound reasonable...delineating the Editorial Board into "subject experts" could be useful. So the "Editor(s)-in-Chief: Quantum Field Theory" could decide whether or not QCD is beyond the scope of the project's aims, and how it is to be approached (OK, the name's pompous, but I couldn't think of anything else). The thing is, the requirements for bottom-level editors could be quite lax, as long as there is appropriate Editorial control over what articles are included, and who can supervise quality standards. Hell, even getting competent high school students on board could be beneficial, if only for feedback on articles' paedagogic value, as long as there is someone knowledgeable around to veto bollocks. The real trick is just to make sure that the final decision on any given problem is made by someone who is genuinely knowledgeable about the field in question (which is not established by qualifications alone - note that Danras (Diskussion • Beiträge • gelöschte Beiträge • hochgeladene Dateien • SBL-Log • Sperr-Logbuch • globale Beiträge • SUL • Logbuch{{Wikipedia:Schiedsgericht/Auflagen und Maßnahmen/Vorlage|Danras}} • sperren) claims a BS in physics!).

Limiting it to physics and maths would also minimise the need for administrator intervention for naughty users, I should imagine; it is easy to edit war over whether or not Nietzsche was a nihilist, an elementary question in philosophy, but it takes a certain sort of bloodymindedness to do it over whether or not the domain of the sine function is (-1;1), an elementary question in maths: and it's that sort of bloodymindedness that ought to get a user blocked for trolling. There would, no doubt, be problems, but they would be minimal. Which is a Good Thing.

Well, it sounds like you're full of ideas, so get going. I am sure you will find a lot of assistance from all manner of people. And keep me posted. Byrgenwulf 15:33, 21 September 2006 (UTC)

Discussion on WikiProject Physics Talk

Copied from this revision (07:36, 29 September 2006) of the WikiProject Physics Talk page.

This is an idea I've been thinking about for a while, and has been brought back to my mind by the discussion above. I'm considering setting up a new wiki site which would allow the creation and continuous updating of reviews of scientific topics. It would work in a similar way to Wikipedia, but would be aimed mainly at scientists. I've put a bit more detail on the idea on my user page. What do people here think to the idea? Mike Peel 19:40, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

It's a somewhat different idea because it is not collaborative, but have you seen Living Reviews ? –Joke 19:45, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Thanks for pointing this out. It looks like it goes about halfway to where I'm after - i.e. it's continually updated, but as you say it's not collaborative. It also doesn't have the copyright freedom I'd like this potential project to have. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I proposed a similar (or at least related) idea to Byrgenwulf and CH, here and here respectively. I'm still working on getting server space and a domain name — a student holiday has compressed everyone's schedules and made it harder to discuss with people, but I'm still very hopeful I can snag a spot in the .mit.edu domain. Anville 20:01, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

I like your idea. I'm unsure which of encyclopaedia articles or full reviews is the best way to go. I went for the latter as it allows for a much more in-depth coverage of a subject, as well as hopefully proving useful to a wide range of people, from undergraduates through to professors. I think that doing reviews might get more attention than doing an encyclopaedia, too - it has less chance of being dismissed as a copy of wikipedia, plus reviews have more of a chance of being featured in the journals (i.e. it would be referenced more), which adds to its publicity within the academic circle.

If you do go ahead with your citizendium-like idea, then please let me know - I would be interested in helping out there. Mike Peel 20:30, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Nothing stops us from using a subject-specific Wikipedia fork as a base to build upon and then writing reviews to supplement (or supplant) particular encyclopedia articles. Actually, I think a site which offers both types of content has a better chance of pleasing everybody and thereby attracting more visitors (some of whom then become contributors themselves, etc.). Anville 20:47, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Are you just talking about a purely science based wiki? Caltech attempted this with quantum optics (http://qwiki.caltech.edu/wiki/Main_Page) but it does not have enough contributors to be very useful at this point. Waxigloo 16:34, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Restricting oneself to quantum optics does not sound like a recipe for success. Anville 16:49, 28 September 2006 (UTC)

Anville, I've been too exhausted to respond with appropriate enthusiasm to your proposal, but once I regain some strength :-/ I'll want to hear more. I think this might be a very good idea, especially if MIT is willing to devote some servers to host an experimental version. ---CH 05:36, 29 September 2006 (UTC)