On 5/19/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:

People tend to write about their hobies rather than the stuff they have more formal expertise in. I tend to write about canals rather than chemisty for example.

<rant> That's just selfish how dare you! </rant>

Hmm, it's true...the stuff I know the most about I write the least about, mostly because I enjoy Wikipedia as a learning experience. Probably like lots of people, I'll correct obvious errors if I see them, but I don't really want to write essays on topics I know well, or enter into a collaborative editing process on a topic I know professionally.

All this leaves the question of how to improve areas that are unlikely to have hobbyists, like the ones I mentioned. Apart from people changing careers, I can't see who would be suddenly taking a huge interest in these areas, enough to research and write about them properly, with the time to do so.

We know that the quality and depth of Wikipedia does not grow evenly across all knowledge areas. But there are areas that are growing so slowly that we may at some stage need to specifically address them to bring them up to speed.

Anyone know of any Wikiprojects or Wikipedia processes that get areas improved by people with no prior interest/expertise? Collaboration of the week is one that comes to mind, but if that's all, it would take about 17,000 [1]years to get all of Wikipedia up to a good (not even FA) standard...:)

Steve [1] 900,000 articles in need of help / 52 collaborations per year.