Peter Blaise responds:
Stable? I think stability is the antithesis and death knell of
any knowledge system, especially one that is community-based. How about
"accurate"?
However, I can imagine an "article" with more than one "main
page", perhaps a series of dated pages or other reasons for more than
one, non-exclusive page on an article topic - that might be interesting.
For instance, I own and constantly refer to old dictionaries and
encyclopedias. I have many versions of the Focal Press Encyclopedia of
Photography from the 1950s, 1960s, 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, up to 2007. I
see a vast difference through every 10 years when I compare each
revision side by side. Of course, the recent edition is about digital
photography, but that does not mean I toss the earlier chemical-based
photography encyclopedia - I want that always available, also. The old
versions are as close to being "stable" as I have, but which version? I
have dozens! However, even the most abandoned photography practices are
revisited today with new ways to explore the old styles of the chemical
darkroom, so even the ancient texts are getting updates. Perhaps having
multiple wiki pages by date or other demarcation makes sense, which
would be sort of like the disambiguation pages - "for *photographic
development* see *chemical* here, see *digital* here".
So, what is the purpose of "stability"? Are we really meaning
"mature"? Even that must be updated as people and science and knowledge
matures - a never-ending process. Now, we have "This page was last
modified 14:51, 19 September 2007" so we can already can see how old a
page is. Does age really matter - is an article better or worse if it's
last edits were a long time ago? What concept are we looking for that
we think we lack? As quoted:
Quality assurance,
Filtering,
Labeling
... and as identified by at
http://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/4_wishes_for_year_2007 (sorely in
need of editing for accurate grammar translation)
Sustainability
Reliability
Outreach
Recognition
I see no stability "problem". That is, I do not see implied
instability as a source of conflict with any of the goals above. As
said in my opening, to the contrary, I believe that stability should
never be a goal. Stability is at worst is an observed happenstance, and
at best a change to revisit, explore, and improve.
However, believing in change even for change's sake (how else
would we ever learn *some* new things), I'm all for revisiting and
exploring the idea of stability, even if it "merely" confirms for us
that it is an unworkable ideal or goal. Some day, the next wave of
editors can revisit the idea of stability once again when they forget
what we have learned. Then the next wave of editors beyond them, and so
on.
Wikis are more than just "quick to get started" building a
massive amount of pages. Because they are also always "quick to edit"
immediately, every day, with each newcomer's thoughts, wikis are proving
to be living, growing things. Grow or die. Wiki begets growth.
Stability equals death.
I imagine that an article may "languish" unedited for many
reasons without being stable, mature, or accurate, including:
- lack of interest
- lack of information
- lack of publicity
- contention
- fear, such as a minority viewpoint being withheld
versus the dominance of a majority ("the earth is round" had to overcome
a pre-existing *stable* viewpoint, for example)
... I'm sure each of us has insight to expand this list of
reasons for stability due to lacks of something.
However, I think a template or extension to MediaWiki software
that allows visitors to rate the page on a range of criteria, with new
criteria dynamically available - now THAT'S a great idea! Something
like:
Others think this page is:
1.....................5...................10
Needs work.....fine.....outstanding
Inaccurate
Incomplete
What do YOU think? 1-10 [__] [ Submit ] Comment on the discussion/talk
page.
... and just leave user reviews at the bottom of ANY page via
template or extension. Later, analysts can bot around looking to
enhance pages that have received poor reviews, asses the overall scoring
of new versus old pages, new versus old users, and so on. You know, as
carpenters say, measure twice before cutting once. Maybe, pages
generally go through a swinging pendulum from incomplete to fine to
inaccurate to fine to needs work to fine to needs work to fine to
outstanding, then back and forth between fine and outstanding the rest
of it's life. Maybe what one person would consider "stable" takes an
average of two years to mature, but never really is "over" or
penultimately accurate? Maybe ...
... and so on. Any thoughts?
- Peter Blaise
PS - At
wikimedia.org
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Request_for_an_account_on_the_Foundation_
wiki I read "... [
wikimedia.org wiki] is not a discussion place. Only a
result of discussions on the other places are published..." and at
http://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/About_this_site I read "MediaWiki.org is
not Wikipedia". THAT is the problem - we all don't believe in our own
product or our own producers or our own customers enough to trust them
and include them with equivalent consideration at all levels! We might
say, "How preposterous, to let anyone contribute to foundation or
software projects!" =8^o But then, we once said, "How preposterous to
let anyone contribute to an encyclopedia." ;-) Same, same.