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
--
"La nèfle est un fruit." - first words of 50,000th article on
fr.wikipedia.org