Nathan, and everyone,
Thanks for the responses. Let me make the idea more concrete.
Here is the wiki article on what is Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia Here is the wikien-l mailing list discussions: http://www.nabble.com/English-Wikipedia-f14021.html
I use Nabble's wikien-l archive because it's easy to browse the topics and to SEE the tight relationship between the discussions and the wiki article.
They complement each other. Why should they be separated?
Regards, Will
Nathan Awrich wrote:
Hi Will,
Thanks for your interest. I think Jimmy and Thomas have made the standard points above - that our aim is to provide a source of accessible and comprehensive information. It isn't a primary teaching tool. We aim to, for instance, contain all the material you might find in a standard general chemistry textbook (as an example). What we do not do, though, is provide this material in a manner suitable for actually learning general chemistry. We also, obviously, don't provide an instructor.
One of the key benefits of the Wikipedia development model is that it allows for improvements by people who are not terribly well informed, on the assumption that in time enough people will have enough aggregate knowledge that the general quality of our articles will be high. The editors who might respond about a subject on the talkpage of a random article can't be assumed to have complete knowledge, or even to know much of anything at all. They might still make valuable contributions to the article, but you wouldn't want to ask a question (say, about breast cancer) where an accurate answer would require a broad depth of knowledge on related subjects.
On the other hand, we do have the reference desk. General subject questions are often answered there, and perhaps that is a form of the tool you're looking for? Kind of a Wikipedia-style Google Answers?
Nathan