--- Brion Vibber <brion(a)pobox.com> wrote:
It might be a start, but it still leaves us with
unreviewed crap by default.
unreviewed≠crap
Please, don't buy into what the Wikipedia naysayers spew. We have lots and lots of
good content
that is constantly improving; just because it is not formally reviewed does not make it
crap. We
in fact have lots and lots of good to great articles. I would not call them crap.
No, it doesn't. It keeps the crap out in front,
leaving us with a permanent
reputation as unreliable and dangerous.
Not if it is clearly marked as a development version.
If we don't want to concentrate on it, then we
need to make a serious effort to
keep people *off* of Wikipedia and divert them to those "static mirrors". This
means backpedaling on the last couple years of publicity and going out of our
way to:
* Prevent linking to articles at *.wikipedia.org
* Keep pages at *.wikipedia.org out of search engines, or very lowly ranked
* Get rid of any "citation" features that encourage people to reference pages
at
our site.
No - that would be the wrong thing to do. I think a great many people will want to link to
the
most up-to-date version (or the version they read via the cite feature). If they want to
link to
the stable version, then they can also do that.
If you keep putting something else out in front,
that's what mirrors are going
to want. (It's also what the crappy leech-mirrors are going to get by default.)
We give them the option to only download stable versions. I'm sure a great many will
do that
instead of having to worry about hosting unvetted content. Fixing bad articles on
Wikipedia is a
lot easier than on a static mirror. So that is the logical place to have those.
Our "article count" is, if anything, too
high. Article count is meaningless at
this point; pretending a growth in article count is helpful is not going to get
us anything but big numbers to toss around press releases and look impressive.
Who said anything about numbers? I want us to cover the sum of human knowledge. We
won't be
anywhere near that goal for years (even at current growth). Yeah, that will require us to
have
many, many more articles, but the point isn't to have a high number for bragging
rights.
Concentrating on "growth" leaves us in a
stagnating rut where we never have
anything that's safe to show in public. Why bother improving it if it's going to
have a penis picture on it whenever anyone goes to look at it?
I'm advocating less concentration on growth than there already is. At the same time, I
don't want
to ruin what we already have.
Having something safe to show in public? I want to have something that is good and
improving. The
'good' part of that is well-served by having stable versions, but the
'improving' part is not
well-served by hiding the development version from potential editors.
I'm recommending we add to it, not replace it. Why
do you think otherwise?
You want to hide the most recent version of articles with a static version. That is very,
very
different from what we do now. It is very different from what has made us work.
I believe this to be false. Making it *visible* that
development is happening by
having a clear distinction, a visible marker of progress from the last stable
revision, and a review process that is interactive, should *encourage*
improvement in quality.
Why bother improving something when it is hidden away in a closet somewhere?
Sunshine is
the best medicine. Development versions need more sunshine than stable versions
do.
Just make it very clear to the reader what is
what and that they can log-in to view stable
versions by default.
If you want sunshine, then let us have stable reviewed versions up front so
there's light at the end of the tunnel!
Cute :)
-- mav
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