[WikiEN-l] Interesting "New Yorker" article about Wikipedia

[Steve Bennett]

On 7/24/06, Arwel Parry <arwel at cartref.demon.co.uk> wrote:
> I just found a very long and interesting article about Wikipedia on the
> "New Yorker" website ("KNOW IT ALL: Can Wikipedia conquer expertise?").
> Seems pretty fair, overall, lots of quotes including from Jimbo, Essjay,
> William Connolley...
>
> http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/articles/060731fa_fact

Damn, posting about the same article twice makes me read it twice.
This time I made it all the way through though.

One thing I noticed is the downside of our "Lamest edit wars" page,
which was clearly the source of a number of disputes. Whereas in
reality these are actually really rare exceptions, the fact that the
journalist can easily pull out a list of the more bizarre ones (apple
pie, cheese, Ann Coulter's birthdate...) makes them sound more common
than they really are.

The points about most edits being simple additions/deletions rather
than reshaping articles are well made. It's a very difficult problem
to solve.

Steve