Hi Ziko,
there is a long-standing problem of recentism. There are a lot of Wikipedia
articles which are only based on new sources (though reliable) and not on
serious academic literature. There are some which contain zero encyclopedic
information because they basically only retell the news stories. There are
twe whole classes of articles which are not even written in prose, such as
all COVID-19 article (with a couple of exceptions). I have just given up at
some point, I think we are beyond the point of no return. As soon as we are
working on really notable topics and their quality is improving and not
degrading I can live with this.
This is just one aspect of what you mention but I think an important one.
Best
Yaroslav
On Wed, May 27, 2020 at 3:36 PM Ziko van Dijk <zvandijk(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Dear fellows,
Some time ago, Joseph Reagle wrote that an encyclopedia must be
progressive. In my personal view, something "progressive" sounds to me
intuitively more sympathetic than something "conservative". But of course,
these are only two words loaden with meaning, and reality is always more
complex.
It seems to me that many Wikipedians or Wikimedians think of themselves as
being progressive and modern. Our wikis are a tribute to science and
enlightenment. Spontaneity and a laissez-faire-attitude are held in high
regard; "productive chaos" and "anarchy" are typical for wikis.
When I had a closer look at our values and ideas, I got the impression that
the opposite is true. Many attitudes and ideals sound to me more like
bureaucracy and traditionalism:
* being thorough, with regard to content and writing about it
* community spirit
* treating everyone equally without regard of the person (the highest ideal
of the Prussian civil servant)
* individual initiative
* reliability
What do you think? Is this just my personal or national background, or has
Wikipedia been build up on a different basis than we usually tell ourselves
and others?
Kind regards
Ziko
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