One essential problem is that once Wikipedia embraced the multipage multimedia-heavy Encarta style as what makes for a "good" article -- without a radical improvement in the editing technology -- the ease of editing has fallen drastically.
Basically all of the policy trends -- agglomeration, deletionism, hierarchy, protection, bureaucratization -- guarantee the decline of the Wikipedia community, if not the website itself. But so it goes. On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 3:28 PM, David Moran <fordmadoxfr...@gmail.com>wrote: > Getting back to the content of the article: I get that inclusionism vs > deletionism is a tired way to talk about divisions between camps of > editors, > and that everyone rolls their eyes when you start talking about it, but > yeah, it's real. Every single person I know who was once a producing > contributor but who has now left the project (including me these days, > functionally--my monthly edit numbers have gone from quadruple to single > digits) did so because of having the same kind of arguments with the same > people over and over again about what deserved to be in the encyclopedia. > Which is anecdotal and statistically insignificant, I know. But it is > undeniable that Wikipedia, as a system, encourages (by its relative ease vs > the alternatives) the removal of content, rather than the creation of good > content, or the polishing of bad or mediocre content, the latter of which > is > a dreary chore. To an extent, the destruction of content is as healthy and > vitally necessary a part of the Wikipedia ecosystem as its reverse. > > I think a lot of attention is paid to the way the technical interface is > hostile to newbies, and making that more user-friendly and democratic is > certainly a concern that needs to be addressed. But I think the tendency > of > older users, or certain editorially minded users, to squat on the project > and bludgeon newer users with policy pages rolled up into sticks is just as > much if not more responsible for driving away the new users we need to > replenish our ranks. > > FMF > > > On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 2:38 PM, Steven Walling <steven.wall...@gmail.com > >wrote: > > > So the content of the WSJ article may be behind a paywall, but I just did > a > > cursory search of the researcher's 2009 Ph.D. thesis which was a > > quantitative > > analysis <http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis> of Wikipedia > in > > several languages. > > > > I didn't see any of the graphs from the piece or any conclusions in the > > thesis which are equivalent to the statements made in the Journal, so > this > > must be new research. > > > > Steven > > > > On Mon, Nov 23, 2009 at 11:30 AM, Michael Snow <wikipe...@verizon.net > > >wrote: > > > > > Gerard Meijssen wrote: > > > > books are available for years the copy of > > > > the day may be available in a library, but how about last years copy > of > > > the > > > > WSJ ? Do you really think the WSJ can be found in every USA library > ?? > > > > > > > I don't know about "every" library, but libraries are about more than > > > just books, and librarians are not unaware of the wonders of databases > > > in our modern digital age. For those of us that use libraries, I > > > encourage you to familiarize yourselves with the collections your > > > library may be able to provide access to online. I've certainly relied > > > on my library privileges for such sources many times in the course of > > > editing Wikipedia, particularly news archives (including the Wall > Street > > > Journal). > > > > > > --Michael Snow > > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > > foundation-l mailing list > > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > > > _______________________________________________ > > foundation-l mailing list > > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
