Matthew Brown wrote:
Wikipedia decided to take the road of not controlling growth some time ago, and I think overall it has worked out well. I think we cope with the mass of content well enough.
Absolutely. One of the featres of a statistical system is that you can never predict where the next growth spurt will happen, but there is still an overall predictability.
I see it as concentric circles, like a target; the center is the high-quality articles, and each ring outward is progressively lower quality. All these rings are expanding. The sum total of crap articles is inexorably expanding, but so is the total of useful stubs, the patchy but promising, the serviceable but short, and even the excellent ones.
I prefer a fractal geometry. A circular growth pattern is too smoothly predictable.It would also impose expectations on areas which are not growing as expected. We still have major areas that are only scantly covered.
Over time, the number of serviceable encyclopedia articles has steadily increased, and I see no signs of that stopping. The percentage of articles that are high-quality may not go up, but the quantity and coverage of those articles is constantly increasing.
The good ones will remain in proportion ... just like the bad ones.
Ec