Cormac Lawler wrote:
I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness the energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can be more productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section does?
Of course just about any model is superior to encouraging low-level ranting. The "open comments" are generally less interesting than a letters page because there may be no filter. Or, as in the case of the Sunday Times it seems, there is moderation but only to save embarrassment to the paper. WP's basic idea of "merciless editing" is one way, and it gets to one major issue at the root: touchtyping skills don't make you a great writer, while basic copyediting skills can transform rubbish prose.
But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's book, the reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written afterword as better written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of interest but rather indulgent, containing too much incidental detail about people Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully happy about that (!) - but it's an interesting take.
Time for one of my current pet theories: the "triangle of takes" on upgrading WP. Andrew Lih represents one vertex, as you can see in his recent NYT interview, where he cites popular culture and politics as the drivers in WP. Basically this is about being very current in our coverage. Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they don't care about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to the point where there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third vertex is comprehensiveness. Lih's book - well, I haven't read it yet (sorry, Andrew), but you can see it fitting roughly in with where I locate him on the triangle. The "incidental detail" is often how popular culture or political journalism is (deliberately) written, rather than trying for in-depth or serious.
Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency, comprehensiveness, quality. Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves somewhere in the interior, and this gives a kind of map of prorities.
Charles