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