On 7/20/06, Elisabeth Bauer elian@djini.de wrote:
One hypothesis: Allowing too much "fancruft" in Wikipedia creates an imbalance in the community structure. There is a really large pool of 15 year old, computer savy kids (some may be older) who get easily attracted to writing wikipedia articles about f.e. star trek compared to a very small pool of for example experts on let's say homer.
What? We have lots of Simpsons articles! ;-)
An alternative hypothesis: The kind of editors who would avoid Wikipedia because it accepts the work of 15-year-old Star Trek fans might also be likely to run into social problems when arguing about the influence of the Iliad on modern storytelling -- because, in their character and their social interaction, they are simply not used to notions like the search for consensus, or collaboration in WikiLove.
Wikipedia is an encyclopedia _built_ by a community, and the encyclopedia can only be successful if the social interactions of the community are healthy. Therefore, expertise cannot be an excuse for aggressive or dismissive behavior. If there is a group of knowledgeable people who cannot exist in the social environment of Wikipedia, then we should provide other means for them to contribute than being a full member of the community -- rather than trying to restructure our content and, by extension, our community to allow them to fit in.
I personally find it amazing and wonderful that so many teenagers wish to contribute to a work of knowledge. That many of them do so in areas of popular culture is hardly surprising, and the environment of Wikipedia is well suited to gradually expose them to new ideas and knowledge.
Erik