On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:46:57 -0000, apw@ap-woolrich.co.uk apw@ap-woolrich.co.uk wrote:
The application of encyclopaedia standards must surely depend on the quality and experience of the editors. There does not seem to be a clear way of assessing this. I come to Wikipedia by way of writing for biographical dictionaries, working for a publisher of academic books, as well as researching and writing academic articles and books my field of the history of technology. I therefore automatically apply those standards to my contributions to Wikipedia. I can also apply those standards to pages which might need tweaking. When more editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute on a regular basis then encyclopaedic standards will spread.
Tony Woolrich Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK Phone (44) 01278 663020 Email apw@ap-woolrich.co.uk
A major issue is not to get dishearted by the Wikipedia content that is genuinely barely coherent English! The majority of Wikipedia content is certainly at least "average" quality and there are whole areas that are indeed written to a high encyclopaedic quality. However - it's not necessarily the case that the major articles are the well written ones - and one has to accept this also. For example, the parent article for all of Wikipedia's rail transport topics, [[Rail transport]] is not well laid out, or a comprehensive neat summary of the whole area, covering all appropriate sections.
Now the typical Wikipedian reaction is "so fix it", but we are all volunteers. Particularly hard work will always be in need of attention - only slowly being attended to. Eventually I hope to tweak the article in question for instance, but it is a mammoth task. There are many smaller articles I'd rather work on!
Working on Wikipedia requires some level of immunity to it's darker sides. For every VfD'ed and speedied article, there are undoubtedly pieces of pure rubbish that escape deletion for some time. Even worse are the articles requiring "cleanup" that no-one wants to attend to.
If you get dishearted, go read some of the better articles on topics you enjoy. (Don't necessarily just browse featured articles, you may encounter the one "featured article" that shouldn't be). Apart from anything else, browsing topics you enjoy is a better way of contributing to Wikipedia. For me, editing Irish-related articles is always pure bliss - as it is so easy for one in the know to ensure that they are accurate!
Zoney