Grants talk:IdeaLab/Assign reviewers to the Wikipedia articles

Examples?

@Csisc: Hey Csisc, thanks for submitting this idea for the campaign. I was wondering if you could point to any article examples so that folks reviewing this idea could see what kind of review, discussion, and article improvements happened as a result of engaging with specialized scientists. Thanks, I JethroBT (WMF) (talk) 16:22, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

@I JethroBT (WMF): Tunisian Arabic is an example for the application of this idea. --Csisc (talk) 13:54, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

Sceptical

Not sure this is a good solution to a minor problem. It seems to give the 'first editor of the work' a special status akin to ownership of the article ? It could be abused to advertise the reviewers. - Rod57 (talk) 20:36, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

@Rod57: As you have said, this is a minor problem. Bias to the works of reviewers and authors of the work could be solved later when reviewed by the admins of the WikiProjects that are verifying the work. Tunisian Arabic is a first experience that can be evaluated to better the method. --Csisc (talk) 14:00, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

• I have to share in Rod57's caution. One problem that would need to be addressed is that not all WikiProjects are well-staffed and requiring that an admin look over every submission edited by a paid editor could be too much work for some. Also, paid editing is very, very heavily frowned upon on Wikipedia and in the non-Wikipedia community. I say paid editing, since this would essentially be paying an editor to write, even if the editors are supposed to be objective. Since they'd be writing about things they're familiar with, there would still be concerns like the ones Rod posed above. There are so many negative articles in the media about paid editing on Wikipedia that I'm not sure that paying someone to review and edit Wikipedia articles would really reflect well. Not only that, but there's a huge prejudice against paid or compensated editing - even if the editors are trying to be as neutral as possible. There's also the question of who would be considered the best authority to do this writing, which would require a fairly strict recruitment and assigning process similar to (but more strict than) the RfA process. As far as the concept of ownership goes, I'm not entirely sure what you mean by this. The way it's written gives off the impression that the reviewers would own any edits they make on Wikipedia, which would go against the Creative Commons license Wikipedia uses. Even if the idea is that any citing journal would have to name the editor's contributions on Wikipedia, this could still be seen by some as going against the CC license. IE, stating "as John Smith wrote on the X Wikipedia article" could be seen as ownership. Heck, even the reward board on Wikipedia still has its fair share of negative criticism and those rewards aren't always physical or monetary in nature and it is open to all editors.

I do see some potential merit in trying to enlist authorities to oversee material, but this looks like it'd be far too risky given that it'd make more work for unpaid editors and could reflect very poorly on Wikipedia, since the editors would be effectively paid by Wikipedia as the grant money would come from them. I think that rather than directly paying specialists/authorities, it'd be better to try to find a way to establish something similar to GLAM, where authorities working in various organizations not covered by GLAM would offer their work for free. In other words, it'd be better to have something that would raise awareness in areas not typically focused on by Wikipedia initiatives than to pay 2-4 specific editors to create content or, at best, try to utilize the reward board on Wikipedia. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 15:18, 23 March 2016 (UTC)

@Tokyogirl79LVA: That is just what I said. We will assign four editors from WikiProject Tunisia to freely edit important works in Wikipedia. These editors will be assisted by free and interested specialists that will regularly review their output. After finishing the work, the work will be assigned to a paid specialist that will get 500 TND to review the work and neutralize it. The four editors will not be paid and will only be cited as the authors of the work. In fact, the works can be cited in research journals as they are peer reviewed. For example, Turki, H., Zribi, R., Gibson, M., & Adel, E. (2015). Tunisian Arabic. In Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation. --Csisc (talk) 09:50, 24 March 2016 (UTC)

• I'm a bit late coming back, but ultimately I really don't think that this is a very good idea. What you're basically asking for is for Wikipedia to create their own paid editors, by way of grant money. Wikipedia has been heavily criticized in the past for paid editing - and that's without Wikipedia actually endorsing said paid editing. This would be endorsed paid editing, something that the media and academic critics of Wikipedia would use as extra ammo to malign the site. There would be a ton of criticism over who was chosen, how they were chosen, whether or not they're backing a specific viewpoint... if the person's sole goal is to criticize Wikipedia (ie, ala Wikipediocracy) then this would give them no small amount of material. This isn't even including the amount of people who would be quite against to the idea of a paid editor coming on to various articles to add content, resentful even.

Now here's something else that concerns me. Initially this made it seem like the paid editors would be the ones writing the content, however your statement above gives off the impression that the paid editors would be the ones looking over other people's edits and altering things as needs be. The problem with this is that the (potentially) last hands doing quality checks for neutrality, facts, and other elements should not be someone who is being paid to do so. If paid editors were going to come into this in any format, they'd be the ones creating the content and a non-involved, non-paid and trusted editor would be the one ensuring that their edits met guidelines. Giving the keys to the gates to someone who is paid - even if it's via Wikipedia - would not reflect well on the community. Plus this gives them an air of authority that wouldn't necessarily mesh well with Wikipedia's "anyone can edit" practice, since this would instead come across as "anyone can edit, but you must meet the approval of these people being paid by Wikipedia". That would bring up a lot of questions as to who is being hired, who is doing the hiring, what their qualifications are, if they have any agendas... it's a huge landmine and one that Wikipedia would be extremely reluctant to approach.

Even if the editors are coming into this with extremely good intentions and have their work checked by others, this just seems like it could be a huge PR nightmare for Wikipedia, one that would outweigh any positives. I can honestly say that even if the Tunsian Wikipedia would go for this, the majority of the English one would not. I think that it'd be better to look into initiatives to get academics and authorities on the various topics interested in volunteering for Wikipedia and getting them to work it into their jobs and (if they're teachers) academic plans. That'd be more in line with what Wikipedia is going for, so a better option would be to get four people to go to various places and raise awareness. You wouldn't get enough for a salary, but maybe enough to pay for some of their expenses. Tokyogirl79LVA (talk) 12:20, 16 May 2016 (UTC)

Suggestion for modification

Thanks to Csisc for their work on this draft proposal. It is obviously a good idea to ensure the accuracy of arabic articles using experts, but I have begin to wonder if this is not in anyway close to paid editing. Tokyogirl79LVA raised some valid and interesting points. Assigning works about Tunisia in the English Wikipedia to specialists for free reviews and to members of WikiProject Tunisia to edit the works using the reviews of specialists seemed to be mutually inclusive but appears to be a toxic combination with paying people for final review. I would be much interested in project in which people can contribute voluntarily without been paid. I mean project that involves getting specialists trained on how to contribute to Wikipedia. Csisc said " In fact, the works can be cited in research journals as they are peer reviewed. For example, Turki, H., Zribi, R., Gibson, M., & Adel, E. (2015). Tunisian Arabic. In Wikipedia. Wikimedia Foundation'" I don't see how this is anyway close to acceptable peer reviewed journal. There is a procedure in setting up an open access journal such as our "Wikiversity Journal of Medicine" here. If your team is interested in setting up such journal, it requires a great deal of effort to the best of my knowledge. Is there a way we can re-design this project? Wikicology (talk) 17:46, 11 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikicology: I thank you for your answer. This is not a paid procedure. The first eight reviewers who are university professors will just review the work as they are friends of the users who modified the most the work. However, the use of money is only done in order to assign an objective reviewers. Creating "Wikiversity Journal of Medicine" will solve this solution. We can assign eight full professors as editors of the journal. This will be simple. It is an excellent idea that we can develop efficiently. --Csisc (talk) 19:35, 17 June 2016 (UTC)

Thanks for the reply Csisc. I am not sure I understand what you mean by " Creating "Wikiversity Journal of Medicine" will solve this solution" Do you mean you want to create another "Wikiversity Journal of Medicine" even when we already have one? or you want to create something like that? I have few questions for you.

• Would the reviewers (professors) be Wikipedians
• How do they plan to do the review?
• How will you raise the money you plan to pay the professors and how will you convince wikipedians to write for free so that others can review their articles for pay? Wikicology (talk) 13:30, 20 June 2016 (UTC)

Wikicology: I thank you for your answer. We will create "Wikipedia Review" that publishes Wikipedia GA status reviews and assign them to their four most active authors after being reviewed by the editorial board of the review. The reviewers will be chosen according to their research effect mainly their Hirsch index and not to their contributions to Wikipedia. They do not have to know about Wikipedia as they were review PDF files. Like any research journal, the editorial delay is about two months in which the editors review and comment the work and decide if it is accurate for final publication.

The authors will do it for free because they like their contributions to be assigned to their names and be cited as their work. As for the professors, we can convince about twenty five reviewers to work for free. This will be a pleasure for them to do that to provide Wikipedia with more trustworthiness. --Csisc (talk) 17:14, 26 June 2016 (UTC)