It occurs to me that Larry's concerns (and mine) with Wikipedia
might be a manifestation of what journalist Frederic Schwarz calls
the "Casio Effect": often a new technology comes along to replace
a large amount of human effort, but that technology produces, say,
90% of the original quality with 5% of the effort. What often
happens, then, is that the people formerly responsible for that
effort don't bother making up for the remaining 10% of the quality,
but merely settle for what the technology produces. So instead of
hiring an expensive human drummer, we use a drum machine; but we
end up with a sound that's somewhat inorganic and lacks the little
touches of creativity that a human might produce. Instead of hiring
a secretary, the exec uses a word processor, and sends out letters
that haven't been vetted through the eyes of someone who knows how
to smooth out his rough language.
Wikipedia is such a technology. It is probably capable of
producing 90% of the quality of a Britannica with 5% of the effort.
But we have two problems: first, we aren't even putting in 5% of
the effort yet--Britannica has hundreds of full-time staffers and
an impressive list of experts. Secondly, we have a lofty goal to
produce something even better than Britannica.
Our task, then, is to precisely identify what that missing 10% is,
and work on systems to create precisely that, and let Wikipedia do
the remaining 90% it does well. At first blush, it appears to me
that the basic creation of content is something Wikipeida does well.
Creating almanac-like content is does well. And it even seems to
be good at ironing out some controversies. And finally, it's good
at polishing prose.
But what it doesn't do well is grunt scholarship: meticulous
checking of facts and references, proper listing of all the best
sources in the field, expert summary of the state of a field and
its history, etc.
Nupedia tried to do everything--generate content, expertly review
it, publicly review it, finish it for publication, etc. I think
that's too much to ask. Perhaps Nupedia could be pared down to a
simpler function, and one that would be easier for experts to
participate in: instead of creating articles, or even editing them,
why not simply let the experts /write reviews/ of articles submitted
to them, which then get attached to the articles? Wikipedia authors
could, whenever they feel an article is ready for it, ask for it to
be submitted to expert review. The expert then just writes what he
thinks about the article (you've omitted this, you got that wrong,
etc.) and sends it back. The Wikipedia process can then go to work
on the article again, with the expert commentary available.
That way, the experts never have the problem of having their names
associated with the mediocre work itself--only with the review,
which is entirely their own creation and therefore ego-satisfying.
And those of us who enjoy the work of writing and polishing have
the expert's input to work with. The experts will be providing
only the last 10% of quality that Wikipedia can't, and no more.