On 10/30/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden(a)yahoo.ie> wrote:
One problem is that as Wikipedia gets bigger, the odds
are that some articles will get substandard edits but
no-one will notice, because the people who previously
worked on the articles will be working on newer
articles. I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I
came back I noticed that a host of articles I had
keeping an eye on because they were in my area of
expertise had had some appalling edits done. Most of
the people who had brought the articles up to a very
high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven
away from the frustration of trying to maintain
quality, or because they had other commitments
elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or
were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those
articles.
We need to be able to in effect save articles that
achieve a high encyclopædic quality as a form of
permanent template, with subsequent edits perhaps
being worked on and discussed elsewhere before
inclusion. Otherwise the danger is that articles,
having climbed to high quality will slip down to
drivel. I noticed that a couple slipped from an A
standard to D through a series of poor edits that
weren't noticed by people who knew the facts on the
topic. Articles that were better than equivalent
articles in Brittanica, etc suddenly were reduced
through a handful of edits to third rate high school
essay standard.
The real danger is that the bigger Wikipedia gets the
more poor edits will slip through. In terms of quality
we may go backward rather than forward. This is likely
to become a bigger problem, and Wikipedia's
credibility may well rest on how we deal with it.
Thom Cadden
Please name a few of these articles in serious decay. I am very
interested in seeing several examples of this. So far, all I've seen
is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening. I don't doubt
that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand
the trouble.
--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused