[WikiEN-l] How to bring back people who don't want to bother?

[geni]

On 1/11/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's a specialist topic that's about to create its own wiki. In
> discussion on a board, one person said "Why not just use Wikipedia?
> What you're describing is identical." Another responded with: "No,
> some 15 year old moron will mark it for deletion just because they
> know nothing about it."
>

Unlikely. The problem is the people who do know a little about it.
People don't tend to delete the maths stuff because they don't
understand it at all. People do understand webcomics a little with the
result that they feel they know enough to list them on afd.


> So that's part of our public image now. Well done alienating webcomics
> authors, i.e. creators of memes and popular culture on the net.
>

Evidence that there is in fact a link here? Generaly if you look at 
the spred of info about wikipedia across weforums webcomic are not
mentioned.

> Not to mention the way the webcomics AC case ended: AFD trolls now
> have the all-clear to work actively to alienate actual experts,
> because the self-professed ignorant are now *officially* to be
> considered equal to those who have an actual bloody clue.
>
> I was amazed knowledge of it had spread so far. Jimbo, you heard about
> this example at the recent UK Wikimedia meet (the doll collectors) -
> this was actually an independent example from the same field.
>

Why? Pretty much any forum on the web you go to has at least one
thread on wikipedia these days. We can't hide stuff any more.

> Experts from fields that actually haven't been alienated literally
> don't think it's worth bothering to try writing in Wikipedia any more.
> Is there anything we can do to rehabilitate Wikipedia's image in the
> outside world?

Without changeing it's fundimental structure? Not really. If you are
going to write about areas of popular culture there are going to be
other people around and they are sometimes going to dissagree with
you.

> (yes, geni, I know you're happy to be rid of annoying specialist experts)

No I'd accept them also decideing not be anoying.


--
geni