I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipedia’s coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
1. http://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026105.do
I think that is a pretty good analysis of the entire project. It is directly related to lack of editorial control and the impossibility of being able to assign writers to problem areas.
Fred
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipediaâs coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
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I usually say Wikipedia consist of some hundred different encyclopedias on different topics.
And some of these are excellent and have full covering, like popes, birds, where wp is better then all other encyclopedia in all aspects
Other subject area are more uneven both in covering and in content for each article, as this review give an example of for electronic
I am also convinced that one of the most important focuses on our editorial work is in getting a complete covering in as many subjects as possible. This is one of the reasons I do believe we need to develop (semi) automatic generation of articles from official databases (like the project to have articles on All lakes in x-country I have written of). Also that Wikidata have a key role in this new focus, enabling us to have a common repository for these common basic data
Anders
Fred Bauder skrev 2013-05-28 21:18:
I think that is a pretty good analysis of the entire project. It is directly related to lack of editorial control and the impossibility of being able to assign writers to problem areas.
Fred
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipediaâs coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
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On 28.05.2013 19:40, phoebe ayers wrote:
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipedia’s coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
Very accurate description of the state of articles at least in natural and technical sciences in the English Wikipedia.
Cheers Yaroslav
...and engineering (theory ok to good, practical often very weak).
And varies across fields radically...
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ruwrote:
On 28.05.2013 19:40, phoebe ayers wrote:
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipedia’s coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
Very accurate description of the state of articles at least in natural and technical sciences in the English Wikipedia.
Cheers Yaroslav
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I know you are all assuming while reading this thread that the situation is much better in humanities subjects such as biographies of 17th-century artists, but strangely, you could say that it's about the same, because the emphasis (through the centuries) there is often based on opinions formed through study of the largest collectors with published catalogs. I agree with Anders: "one of the most important focuses on our editorial work is in getting a complete covering in as many subjects as possible", so let's "develop (semi) automatic generation of articles from official databases". If you deliver a Wikipedia page to a google search that is as *specific* as possible, then the people who have the grains of knowledge you need are more likely to become editors and contribute to them.
2013/5/29, George Herbert george.herbert@gmail.com:
...and engineering (theory ok to good, practical often very weak).
And varies across fields radically...
On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 3:18 PM, Yaroslav M. Blanter putevod@mccme.ruwrote:
On 28.05.2013 19:40, phoebe ayers wrote:
I ran across this paragraph in the preface to O'Reilly's new book "Encyclopedia of Electronic Components." [1] I'm not sure that I've ever seen an evaluation of Wikipedia's electronics coverage before, but to me this sounds like a pretty good description of a lot of our engineering articles (at least in English)...
"Wikipedia’s coverage of electronics is impressive but inconsistent. Some entries are elementary, while others are extremely technical. Some are shallow, while others are deep. Some are well organized, while others run off into obscure topics that may have interested one of the contributors but are of little practical value to most readers. Many topics are distributed over multiple entries, forcing you to hunt through several URLs. Overall, Wikipedia tends to be good if you want theory, but not-so-good if you want hands-on practicality."
-- phoebe
http://shop.oreilly.com/**product/0636920026105.dohttp://shop.oreilly.com/product/0636920026105.do
Very accurate description of the state of articles at least in natural and technical sciences in the English Wikipedia.
Cheers Yaroslav
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