On 31/03/07, Matthew Brown morven@gmail.com wrote:
Inherent in this whole thing is the belief that Wikipedia is getting worse. Is it? Really? I have my doubts. Wikipedia is getting bigger, and thus the absolute NUMBER of problems increases, but I am yet to be convinced that the project as a whole is any more problematic than it ever was.
In my opinion, Wikipedia is *better* now than it ever has been and Wikipedia tends towards self-improvement. Under the organic system, our quality and control mechanisms have increased and the number of articles which meet these higher standards have increased. If we retain the current system, this will continue to happen.
The problem is that the rate of improval of Wikipedia currently doesn't match the rate at which we need to improve. Our growth in popularity, usability and use, accountability (legal and ethical).. all demand quality and control standards that exceed the ones currently in place. As these factors continue to grow--as our moral and legal accountability continues to grow--we will fall farther and farther behind (despite our general trend towards self-improvement). In the long term we risk becoming bankrupt in more than one sense.
As Slim Virgin commented on a thread entitled "Getting hammered in a tv interview is not fun" at [WikiEN-l] (I hope she doesn't mind me quoting her): "All I'm arguing is that it's irresponsible to continue year after year on the same course knowing that these are real possibilities [legal harm to us and personal harm to others] and relying only on luck to see us through." The current organic system results in us relying on luck. This proposed system effectively eliminates it.
I also agree that all articles should be categorized - though that's not enough, unless we have some idea where it fits into the project, the right people will not find it and fix it.
Perhaps we should have a call to effort in categorising uncategorised articles. Often I'm stuck on Wikipedia deciding what the most important thing for the project I could be spending my time doing. If I knew that categorisation was the most important task I could be doing (an easy, though tiring task), I would happily engage in it. Such a call to effort would alert many users to the need for categorisation.
This is something practical we could be implementing right now (while we continue to discuss theoretical possibilities here and slowly get them implemented). Such a project would benefit Wikipedia whether we stay as we are or whether we determine to change.