The second article from the list of frequently viewed articles is "Valentine's Day". The reason this article appears in this review is the mere happenstance that the data set I'm using is for the first 23 days of February, 2008; it is obvious from the article's access pattern that the interest in this article is highly seasonal, with half of the views from February falling unsurprisingly on the 14th. The article is not currently protected, although it was semiprotected from January 29th through February 16th.
This article is another confused mass of facts strung together without a lot of rhyme or reason. The introductory paragraphs are repetitive of one another and, almost word for word, of sentences later in the article. The history section starts out with a brief discussion of the name Valentine, and then backtracks to discuss possible classical origins of the celebration. It then jumps forward to Chaucer (actually a relatively readable section). After this we are barraged with Wikipedia's trademark presentation of random tidbits of confusing information that seems as if it might be related, but figuring out how is challenging. After reaching a brief comment about North American elementary schools, we are thrown back once again to the Middle Ages and left there, while we go seeking for meaning in other cultures, where "other" apparently includes both North America and Europe, even though it is pretty clear that the sections before were primarily about European traditions to begin with.
This is another typical Wikipedia article. The history is presented in a very disorganized manner and some of the items shoehorned into the history are not historical at all. Some of the historical items are presented with insufficient context to understand why they are mentioned in the article. In general, the cultural significance of the holiday is not well-explained, nor is the evolution of the manner of observance even in western Europe and North America discussed in any coherent manner. Clear evidence of "dartboard editing" is visible: the article looks very much as if various editors have thrown darts at it with their personal favorite facts about Valentine's Day attached to them, without any real regard as to where those darts stuck to the article. Clearly an article grossly in need of a complete top-to-bottom rewrite. There's also evident problems with systemic bias, as the article focuses almost entirely on Europe and North America, touching on other cultures only briefly and in a very scattershot way.
Grade: D+
Viewed: 1.1 million times on February 14th
This article is another confused mass of facts strung together without a lot of rhyme or reason. The introductory paragraphs are repetitive of one another and, almost word for word, of sentences later in the article. The history section starts out with a brief discussion of the name Valentine, and then backtracks to discuss possible classical origins of the celebration. It then jumps forward to Chaucer (actually a relatively readable section). After this we are barraged with Wikipedia's trademark presentation of random tidbits of confusing information that seems as if it might be related, but figuring out how is challenging. After reaching a brief comment about North American elementary schools, we are thrown back once again to the Middle Ages and left there, while we go seeking for meaning in other cultures, where "other" apparently includes both North America and Europe, even though it is pretty clear that the sections before were primarily about European traditions to begin with.
This is another typical Wikipedia article. The history is presented in a very disorganized manner and some of the items shoehorned into the history are not historical at all. Some of the historical items are presented with insufficient context to understand why they are mentioned in the article. In general, the cultural significance of the holiday is not well-explained, nor is the evolution of the manner of observance even in western Europe and North America discussed in any coherent manner. Clear evidence of "dartboard editing" is visible: the article looks very much as if various editors have thrown darts at it with their personal favorite facts about Valentine's Day attached to them, without any real regard as to where those darts stuck to the article. Clearly an article grossly in need of a complete top-to-bottom rewrite. There's also evident problems with systemic bias, as the article focuses almost entirely on Europe and North America, touching on other cultures only briefly and in a very scattershot way.
Grade: D+
Viewed: 1.1 million times on February 14th
A very interesting series, Kelly, and I hope you continue it.
ReplyDeleteIn this case a comparison with the Britannica article might be instructive. It's certainly a bit more coherent but it, too, suffers from systemic bias. In fact I think the dartboard editing we see at the Wikipedia article has gone some way towards broadening the cultural perspective.
But the main difference between the Wikipedia article and the one in Britannica is that the latter is much shorter. There's more than one way to view that difference. Some might say that the Wikipedia article has buried the essential facts present in the EB article under a heap of semi-relevant factoids. Others might say that the Wikipedia article has a lot more information without being prohibitively long and so is to be preferred. I'd be interested to see Kelly's take on this.
Please do continue this analysis until you are thorougly bored of it, it is quite informative. Thanks for carrying it out!
ReplyDeleteKelly, I thought of your comment here about dense, technical writing. I have similar experiences with Wikipedia articles.
ReplyDeleteI have tried to read or skim through http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_dynamic_range_imaging several times now (over the course of a couple of weeks). By the end of each try, I feel I had understood very little of the text, due to how complicated and technical it was.
Earlier tonight I looked into HDR workflow solutions on Linux and came across the wonderful website http://wiki.panotools.org/. Their article, http://wiki.panotools.org/HDR, makes much more sense, partly due to being shorter and much less technical. I find it very clearly written, and would definitely recommend others read it as opposed to the Wikipedia article (or at least read it before the Wikipedia article).
It is unfortunate that Wikipedia articles often tend to be composed of poor, dense and/or highly technical prose. Articles on almost always the first or second Google hit, and people forget (heh, I forgot) that, for some topics, they can look elsewhere for better-quality information.