On Mon, 29 Oct 2012 08:13:48 +1100, Kerry Raymond wrote:
As far as I can see most of the top 10000 editors appear to be making a lot of of their contributions in terms of administration and quality control (eg fighting vandalism) rather than in content. I think the "long tail" of (good faith) editors are mostly contributing content on a range of topics that I believe will continue to grow. I believe that once a WYSIWYG editor for WP becomes available we will see a growth in the long tail of editors and the topics they write on because I think wiki markup is a barrier for many people currently under-represented in the demographics of WP editors.
I actually have quite the opposite impression. I think most of the top contributors are actually creating content. I myself am somewhere in the top 3000, and 90% of my edits are in the article space. I would be interested to see a study on this if it exists.
I agree WP has moved into a new phase different from its earliest years and probably its policies and processes might need to change to reflect that. For example, it's fine to "be bold" with a stub, but woe betide the newbie editor that decides to be bold with a well-developed article whose current words may have been carefully crafted to capture the right nuances to keep all the warring factions happy. Personally I believe mature articles need more of a curated approach to incorporate new material contributed by anyone but where the edits are done by more experienced editors of that topic. Not that they should be "gatekeepers" but that the material be added in the right place and in a way that reflects prior agreements in relation to reflecting differing viewpoints. I think the WP policy on mature articles should be "be careful not to break what's already there".
With this I agree.
Cheers Yaroslav