On 12/19/07, George Herbert <george.herbert(a)gmail.com> wrote:
cc'ed to Foundation-L.
On Dec 18, 2007 3:44 PM, Jussi-Ville Heiskanen <cimonavaro(a)gmail.com> wrote:
On 12/19/07, David Gerard
<dgerard(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
http://blog.citizendium.org/2007/12/18/why-the-focus-on-creating-quality-co…
Interesting thoughts on quality.
For me the telling line in that blog post is:
"Even if we don't get it right, someone eventually will, because it is
possible and because there is such a huge potential demand for it. I
look forward to that day!"
That is pretty much what citizendium is relying on. That there is a
"huge potential
demand" for perfection instead of "just good enough". I don't see
that
this is a gimme, but it could be true. I cast my lot with "just good
enough", so will have
to forego perfection.
Without getting absolutist, I think there's clearly a spectrum here.
We've picked one point; it works for us, and our editors and our
readership, and we're taken credibly by outside organizations and
society as a whole.
It may be that other points in the spectrum are both workable as
volunteer projects (critical mass of contributors and content) and
higher in the quality spectrum, and seen as more valuable by society
as a whole.
This is something that the Foundation may want to keep in mind;
"English Wikipedia" as currently structured may not be the only
english language encyclopedia project worth supporting. Why let Larry
and Google have all the fun exploring the corners and diversity
options in the space we're in?
I think the problem with the approach that citizendium is taking, is
the same one that many arm-chair physicists bang their head against.
It is nearly a cliche that people who want to ridicule quantum
mechanics bring up the point that the way the equations are
constituted, there is no "real" reason why a grand piano couldn't
appear out of thin air, with nothing to impel it but pure potential.
While in some sense this is mathematically accurate, it misses
the point. The chances of a grand piano appearing out of thin
air, are scales of magnitude small enough to consider the age
of the universe a batting of an eyelash of a gnat, if a gnat had
eyelashes, to put it mildly.
Of course, the flipside of the argument is that what wikipedia
is trying is not waiting for a grand piano to appear out of thin
air, but instead giving the parts of one grand piano to a
million monkeys, and waiting patiently for the monkeys to
assemble them into a playable instrument.
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, ~ [[User:Cimon Avaro]]