On Jan 5, 2005, at 8:53 AM, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales wrote:
J.F. de Wolff wrote:
Articles develop Darwinistically. They emerge
from primordial soup
(substubs, anon newbie edits) and evolve as more people add material.
The essence of my talk in Berlin was to argue against this view of how
wikipedia operates. Obviously, there is something to it if we
streeeeeeetch the "Darwinistic" metaphor to the breaking point. But
in the main, I think this analogy is one which misleads us into
incorrect conclusions.
This is not to say that any of your particularly conclusions is wrong.
I am just saying that I think that the "Darwinistic" model is more of
a hindrance than a help in understanding how to improve things.
--Jimbo
The math doesn't work for the Darwinian metaphor. But there is a
Hamiltonian way of representing the selection process at work on wiki.
Short form, we, the wikipedians, aren't the environment, we are the
organism.