Sabermetrics in Wikipedia Articles
by philkid3 on Mar 6, 2010 10:37 PM EST
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I might be able to articulate this better later, but I wanted to go ahead and make a fanpost about it to get discussion going.
Think about how much time people spend on Wikipedia link chasing. Think about how many concepts, stories and facts you've learned just by clicking the links there and following them, or clicking the footnotes and going to other websites to read their research and reporting.
When we talk about introducing better statistics and ideas to the mainstream, is this not a good way to do it? You go to a player's page and you see lots of stats, but they're W, RBI, AVG, HR and ERA. How many people would learn about FIP and DIPS theories if they went to Cole Hamels's page and saw under his 2009 that he was virtually the same pitcher as the year before, with the reasoning why, and then followed the link to the DIPS page and the footnote to Fangraphs? How much more approachable and understandable would that make the stats and the ideas behind them if integrated in to such a common source of knowledge finding that way?
Just a thought. Looking for discussion.
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A lot of the more old school sabermetric stats have wikipedia entries.
In fact, wikipedia is my favorite resource for looking up formulas for things like Base Runs et cetera.
I’ve always wondered who writes the sabermetric wikipedia articles. Personally, I prefer for the old school stuff to be more accessible on wikipedia, because I think it’s better to start there than somewhere like the Fangraphs glossary if you’re trying to get acquainted with sabermetrics. If someone tries to jump directly into where the conversation is now, they’ll miss things like secondary average, range factor, runs created, and speed score. These metrics are largely obsolete, but the theory is crucial.
Looking at the past is something I think we all could stand to do a bit more. The past always provides healthy perspective if you look hard enough.
I know most stuff has articles.
But I’m talking about the stats being used where applicable within other articles people would be reading for other reasons to promote link chasing.
I'm giving this a try with Cole Hamels
So, to cite DIPS, I need a credible source. Not original research. I just linked to its own damn Wikipedia page, but apparently that’s not enough to include it in an article. Why wins and losses are listed without any evidence linked to support their viability is beyond me.
Anyway, got any good credible DIPS evidence?
Can you flag Wins and Losses and losses as needing "evidence"?
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by Sky Kalkman on Mar 7, 2010 5:39 PM EST up reply actions 1 recs
I added a couple sources about Hamels...
Tango, Neyer, and THT have articles specifically talking about Hamels and how he was basically the same in 2008 vs. 2009. I added a sentence about that and included the 3 sources. Inevitably my edits will be deleted because the sources aren’t reputable enough or something, but for now it’s there.
I'm starting to think this is going to spectacularly fail unless given so much work by so many people it can't be eliminated.
He is presenting the argument now that line drive and ground ball rates are a minority opinion and thus do not belong in the presentation, saying it is undue weight on fringe statistics.
From the pretty ridiculous conversation I'm having with him. . .
. . . it seems as though Wikipedia gives individuals a lot of power to determine relevance on their own with no need to remain neutral on topics and to run whatever articles they get to first.
The conversation can be found. . .
. . . here.
He was a little more standoffish towards me in another conversation I can’t figure out how to access.
Man, that's rough.
One of my biggest concerns about Wikipedia is the danger of group-think: If just a handful of the top editors get an idea in their head that something isn’t true (DIPS, for example) they can effectively stifle any progress on the Wikia sites.
from Cubs Stats and Twitter @BradleyWoodrum
I read through some of his other contributions
since it was unclear to me whether or not he was a baseball expert or a random editor who decided to go to war with you on this topic, and came across this policy.
Although I don’t think that adding FIP, DIPS, wOBA, etc. would alone violate the policy, it’s worth noting that we need to show restraint in the scope of this project.
I agree with that policy.
The issue there is with all of this is too much gray area for one person to decide their cut-off line is the rule instead of having a discussion for what should or should not be written.
Definitely.
I think you can appeal to another editor or raise the issue with other editors — there’s bound to be someone else monitoring these pages — perhaps there’s something on the baseball or sports portal?
Citing sources on Wikipedia is difficult.
You can’t cite other Wikipedia articles as sources within a Wikipedia article (according to the source citing tutorial).
I’ve never properly understood how Wikipedia editors determine source verifiability and reliability. Is there a way for you to talk to an editor who isn’t involved in this?
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