This looks fantastic, but I'm concerned about the way edit value is calculated. Under the current proposal, as I understand it, copyeditors will be more "valuable" than those who contribute original content. Someone with poor writing skills might contribute a significant body of work, but if it is then rewritten, the original contributor's work won't appear on the page for very long and that person won't be ranked highly. But the copyeditor, whose better writing skills suggest that fewer people will modify the resulting text, will be considered more valuable because the text will remain on the page longer without alteration.
Furthermore, if a user connects all the wikis on which s/he works, those who work on multiple wikipedias would be at a disadvantage. Their article contributions in their non-native language will likely not remain unaltered for long due to stylistic problems, and that will damage their rating on their "home" wikipedia.
I'm not sure how to fix this without getting humans involved. Perhaps it's not a significant problem, since the best editors can both create content and do it in such a way as to make it readable. But it appears to me that average editors will be able to attain the same rating as above-average content creators.
All that said, though, this is a great idea. The ability to view each user's contributions to an article and judge their accuracy based on the author would be key in improving the credibility of wikis in general, and wikipedia specifically.
Nathaniel
On 3/17/06, Geoff Burling llywrch@rdrop.com wrote:
Have a look at Ray King's essay:
http://www.pint2.org/index.php/Contributor_Ranking_System
Although this solution is aimed more generally at sites using Wikimedia software, this is something I believe Ray has been talking with Jimbo about. I happened to be present when Ray presented this the other night, & a known expert suggested an excellent way to grab some of the data needed without causing a strain on the servers.
And Ray is *very* interested in feedback. I hope he concentrates on a simplified version of this proposal, rather than trying to write the finished, with all of the bells-&-whistles version.
Geoff
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
-- Nathaniel C. Sheetz http://www.personal.psu.edu/ncs124