Wikipedia needs some urgent help in the database area
One or more people are going around clobbering Wikipedia’s coverage of analytic DBMS vendors. Netezza’s article has been gutted, and is marked for deletion. Aster Data’s and Dataupia’s articles are marked for deletion, although it seems that at least Aster’s will survive. Greenplum’s article is already gone, as is DATAllegro’s. I can’t immediately tell whether there ever was one on Infobright or ParAccel.
Vertica’s, by way of contrast, is in good shape. (But then, the Vertica guys are a little sharper about internet marketing that most of their peers.) Teradata’s isn’t in danger of deletion, but definitely could use some sprucing up.
Some tips for editing Wikipedia:
- Do NOT make qualitative marketing claims (whether or not you’re doing the frowned-upon thing of editing your own entry).
- Put in references and footnotes from credible sources.
- This blog would be an excellent source of same.
- So, of course, would be the major trade press.
- Companies’ own sites and press releases are perfect references for some kinds of info.
- I specifically recommend footnoting information about product names/families, major product releases, notable customers, and corporate events like IPOs, mergers, etc.
- Whether or not you can be bothered to actually put in footnotes — state things with only the degree of emphasis that can be backed up by footnotes.
One more suggestion: This is a big enough mess that some of you will probably create and/or edit your own entries, guidelines to the contrary notwithstanding. if so, then while you’re at it, edit your competitors’ entries too, and — this is crucial! — do so just as fairly as you edit your own.
If you guys go get the articles into halfway decent shape, I’ll do a pass later and spruce them up a bit. But I’m not up for doing all the work myself.
Comments
7 Responses to “Wikipedia needs some urgent help in the database area”
Leave a Reply
It might be a good idea to read the various Wikipedia guidelines before attempting to shore up some of these articles, WP:N (notability) in particular. It doesn’t really matter if you (all of us) think something is notable for inclusion in an encyclopedia, it matters what administrators think and they will, in time, find articles that do not meet the criteria.
Your advice above is good, the more reliable sources you can footnote the better. I was an administrator in Wikipedia for a while, but even I was surprised when a very senior admin said to me, “We’re not interested in the truth, only verifiability.”
I should note, however, that your position that others do the work and you’ll come in to clean it up would be frowned on as a breach of etiquette.
-NR
Hi Neil, and thanks.
You double-posted, so I deleted the one that was a strict subset of the other.
As for Wikipedia etiquette — I’ve carefully avoided registering as a Wikipedian, so that nobody can impute to me obligations to do any particular work. As much as I’ve criticized the ODP in other ways, they’re very good about recalling that volunteers are VOLUNTEERS; literally all they demand of one is that one log in every 3 or 4 months to keep one’s account active. I’m sorry but not shocked to hear from you that Wikipedia isn’t the same way.
As for notability — all the companies I write about here meet the notability guidelines. Indeed, the fact that I write about them here comes pretty close to AUTOMATICALLY making them cross the notability threshold, if I recall it correctly.
Best,
CAM
hmm, perhaps it’s time for a spinoculars for just business? slant-free marketing materials? is that even possible?
Curt,
Sorry about the double-post, thanks for deleting it. I should stop using that dang TRS-80 with the 300 baud acoustic coupler.
I believe you’re right about notability, but some editor could come along and think “this blog is written by a guy who gets money from vendors, so it’s not reliable source” and another may think “Curt’s a respected analyst, this is fine.” You just never know.
My wife (a medical theorist and writer) has vicious detractors on the web, hate sites really, who are accepted on Wikipedia, but she has doctors in clinical practice with her protocols praising her work who are not considered reliable sources for citing. It’s not always logical.
I have grave reservations about Wikipedia. It’s become about as reliable as a California secondary school textbook. Some articles are truly excellent, but it’s hard to tell which ones, unless you’re fluent with the subject matter, in which case, you wouldn’t be reading them.
-N
Neil,
Considered “notable” or “reliable” BY WHOM? The point behind that rhetorical question is:
The most recent edit or determination on a Wikipedia article is (with rare exceptions) not a dispositive one. If you don’t like what was concluded, and you care, keep editing. You’d know better than I what the exceptional edge cases are, but in practice, I think that if one keeps putting in good content, the one bad thing that’s actually likely to happen is that somebody else removes it.
All the other theoretical problems, about irritating some Wikipedia Powers-That-Be, seems unlikely to happen often outside the kinds of areas that generate passions, such as politics and certain kinds of fandom. 😉
Am I too terribly wrong in seeing things that way?
Thanks,
CAM
Perhaps I haven’t emphasized this point enough:
Edits to Wikipedia should be in strict adherence to Wikipedia’s policies on Neutral Point of View, Verifiability, and No Original Research. For example:
The point of my post was that, EVEN WITH YOUR MARKETING REFLEXES TURNED OFF, editing Wikipedia is in some cases a good idea. But since there’s a strong (emphasis theirs) Wikipedia opinion that one shouldn’t edit with a conflict of interest (COI), you need to be utterly scrupulous in all else if you flout that guideline.
I think that some of the editors are also extremely sensitive to the thought that some Wikipedia entries might merely constitute advertising (or P.R.), even if they are strictly neutral.
Personally, I find the Wikipedia entries about companies to be extremely useful, and I often think that more effort is spent pruning Wikipedia than is necessary. But they have their own culture, and their “We’re not interested in truth, only verifiability” only sometimes achieves the results that are in alignment with my own preferences.
(I hate criticizing Wikipedia, though. It’s such a valuable resource, and on the whole I do respect the value of all those people who donate their time to it.)