New subject: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 71, Issue 41 FA and comprehensiveness

21 Jun 2009

      Hi, picking up Charles's point "Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they don't care about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to
the point where there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third
vertex is comprehensiveness". In my experience as an FA reviewer comprehensiveness is one of the FA criteria, and I've seen FA candidates get significantly more comprehensive at FAC. I've also seen problems when reviewers have seen omissions that the nominator doesn't want in "their" article.
WerSpielChequers
...

Message: 4
Date: Sun, 21 Jun 2009 11:18:27 +0100
From: Charles Matthews charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] The London Review of Books on
Wikipedia
To: English Wikipedia wikien-l@lists.wikimedia.org
Message-ID: 4A3E08F3.7060205@ntlworld.com
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252;
format=flowed
Cormac Lawler wrote:
...
I think what's interesting here is asking: how does
Wikipedia harness
...
the energy of the public (for want of a better word)
in a way that can
...
be more productive, useful (or at least less
brain-sporkingly
...
nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section
does?
Of course just about any model is superior to encouraging
low-level 
ranting.  The "open comments" are generally less
interesting than a 
letters page because there may be no filter. Or, as in the
case of the 
Sunday Times it seems, there is moderation but only to save
embarrassment to the paper. WP's basic idea of "merciless
editing" is 
one way, and it gets to one major issue at the root:
touchtyping skills 
don't make you a great writer, while basic copyediting
skills can 
transform rubbish prose.
...
But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's
book, the
...
reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written
afterword as better
...
written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of
interest but
...
rather indulgent, containing too much incidental
detail about people
...
Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully
happy about that
...
(!) - but it's an interesting take.
Time for one of my current pet theories: the "triangle of
takes" on 
upgrading WP. Andrew Lih represents one vertex, as you can
see in his 
recent NYT interview, where he cites popular culture and
politics as the 
drivers in WP. Basically this is about being very current
in our 
coverage. Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they
don't care 
about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to
the point where 
there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third
vertex is 
comprehensiveness. Lih's book - well, I haven't read it yet
(sorry, 
Andrew), but you can see it fitting roughly in with where I
locate him 
on the triangle. The "incidental detail" is often how
popular culture or 
political journalism is (deliberately) written, rather than
trying for 
in-depth or serious.
Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency,
comprehensiveness, quality. 
Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves
somewhere in 
the interior, and this gives a kind of map of prorities.
Charles

WikiEN-l mailing list
WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org
To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit:
https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
End of WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 71, Issue 41

Re: [WikiEN-l] WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 71, Issue 41 FA and comprehensiveness