Hi Amy, all
There was a discussion around this issue on Clay Shirky's blog Corante in 2005-2006,
around the time of the launch of Citizendium. One proposal I remember was to feature the
number of editors who had worked on an article at the top of every article page as a
quality metric indicator; there may be others. You will find the refs in [drumroll:
shameless promotion alert] my paper on WP in the Journal of Science Communication:
http://jcom.sissa.it/archive/09/01/Jcom0901(2010)C01/Jcom0901(2010)C04
Hope that helps
cheers,
Mathieu
Message: 3
Date: Fri, 24 Sep 2010 17:00:37 -0400
From: Amy Bruckman <asb(a)cc.gatech.edu>
Subject: [Wiki-research-l] cool stuff to show your favorite librarian?
To: Research into Wikimedia content and communities
<wiki-research-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <4C9D1175.8040401(a)cc.gatech.edu>
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Next Friday I'm giving a talk to the Library Information
Technology
Association (LITA) entitled, "How Wikipedia Really Works, and
What This
Means for the Nature of 'Truth.'"
I've got my talk mostly worked out, but would love to add more
on
current research--particularly in the area of interface
innovations to
show how trustworthy an article is. What should I talk
about? Got
anything you think librarians will get excited about?
My main argument is that knowledge is socially constructed, and
to
assess an article you need to know how many people have edited
it and
how many are watching it. The best Wikipedia articles are
arguably more
rigorously reviewed than a top journal article, but of course
there's
huge variability from there.
All leads (including shameless self promotion)
appreciated! Thanks!
-- Amy