Pete Bartlett wrote:
Why is de: better than en: is a great question. They appear to have covered classic encyclopedic topics much better than en: and their proportion of Exzellente Artikeler is double that of our FAs, despite standards. How to learn from de would be a great thing to discuss.
In a word: "Ordnung".
The full range of connotation is not easily translated into English, but the disambig for de:'s [[Ordnung]] connects to lots of telling things, such as en:'s [[social structure]] and the like. At the risk of playing amateur sociologist and offending everybody, I'll opine that while the German cultural liking for "Ordnung" sounds to USians and Brits an awful lot like a compulsion to "follow orders", in the WP context I think it translates to a greater sense of duty to help achieve communal goals.
For instance, while I will likely will get tired of writing about a proper topic like fish anatomy and impulsively shift over to something trivial like old D&D modules, the German editor will tend to feel bound to finish with the fish anatomy first. Multiply that by thousands of editors, and you can see where the one would end up with lots of good articles, and the other with lots of new articles.
So I think the difference is reflective of some deep cultural differences, and not easily changed. Still, it wouldn't hurt to use de: as a real-life example of how en: can do better - it's not the wiki software or process that is limiting us, but our own lack of discipline.
Stan