Ryan Kaldari wrote: > On 3/28/11 5:20 PM, MZMcBride wrote: >> There's a theory that doing something like editing a free online >> encyclopedia is a niche activity, with a finite amount of people who will >> ever be willing to participate. If we accept this theory, it makes the very >> strong focus on increased participation look rather silly. > > So we should just be satisfied with our Pokemon articles and leave it at > that? > > I for one would like to one day see a Wikipedia that isn't obviously > written by people like us, i.e. white male American geeks. Maybe it > would include better articles on children's literature, cooking, > hip-hop, knitting, sharia law, wine, and African dance. Maybe it would > have more featured articles on books than video games. Maybe it's > article on sexism would be about more than just the Men's Rights > Movement. Maybe it would include statistics from places like Brazil and > Mozambique instead of just the United States and Texas. > > Now that I think about it, I believe it would actually be a pretty > awesome website. Too bad we'll never let that happen.
I wonder, has any other part of the Internet followed this seemingly mythical trend that the Wikimedia Foundation is putting forward, where increased participation magically leads to better content? When I look around to other parts of the Internet with high levels of participation and very low barriers to entry, I don't hear much signal in the noise. For examples, look at the content of YouTube comments, Facebook Wall posts and comments, tweets, etc. Increased participation might build a bigger "movement," but a niche activity is still a niche activity, no matter how many strategic plans, consultants, and buzzwords are thrown at it. MZMcBride _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
