[WikiEN-l] "Wikipedia approaches its limits" - Technology Guardian

[Steve Bennett]

On Thu, Aug 13, 2009 at 6:58 PM, Charles
Matthews<charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/aug/12/wikipedia-deletionist-inclusionist


"Meanwhile, for those who did not invest vast amounts of time in
editing, the experience was very different. "For editors that make
between two and nine edits a month, the percentage of their edits
being reverted had gone from 5% in 2004 all the way up to about 15% by
October 2008. And the 'onesies' – people who only make one edit a
month – their edits are now being reverted at a 25% rate," Chi
explains."


My sense is that the reason for this is that the experienced editors
are now more certain of what is a good edit and what is a bad one.
Back in the day, any edits were welcome. You could write a sentence on
[[George W Bush]] and it would be an improvement on the void before
it. But now, most random edits are going to be to articles that are
quite polished, and don't need random edits. They need thought out
edits that conform to policies.

Summary: With the encyclopaedia being bigger and more complete, it's
less likely that a "onesie"'s edit is worth keeping.

The 1% reversion rate for experienced editors was also interesting. I
doubt my edits get reverted at anything like that high a rate.

Steve