On Sat, 2 Oct 2004, Michael Snow wrote:
On this one, I agree with Elian. I doubt that a press release of this nature would have much impact because we haven't done anything worth mentioning
I believe Elian was saying that it *is* going to be announced this week, but as part of another major german press release, rather than on its own.
On Sat, 2 Oct 2004 21:03:53 -0700, Jimmy (Jimbo) Wales jwales@wikia.com wrote:
I agree with Elian too. I've been using these results in a low-key way when I talk to the press, but usually I down play it. When the question of quality comes up, I prefer to stress that we know we aren't perfect, and that we have a long way to go, but that we are proud of what we have already accomplished.
The idea is that we should continue to portray ourselves as "a project to create..." rather than as a finished product. Because, frankly, we do have a long way to go in many ways.
I agree with all of this, and hope that Wikipedia a hundred years from now will still see itself not as anything like a finished product, but instead as the imperfect start of something even greater.
Putting out a press release crowing about this test just invites more hostile reviews to conduct the same type of test, but with an eye toward showing how broken we are in many ways.
Would this not be an improvement on the kinds of hostile tests critics carry out now? Some organizations pay good money for testers whose sole job is to constructively show how broken their products are.
That said, it should be possible to mention these results without crowing, yet without waiting for a yet-unfinalized review system to review a thousand articles. Perhaps in a press release announcing a new project like the Commons, or a recent invitation to participate in / speak at an important conference.