[Foundation-l] Analysis of statistics

[Henning Schlottmann]

Dennis During wrote:

> It might be possible to rely on a population of academics as contributors
> but there needs to be a mechanism to make sure that the needs of our actual
> users have appropriate weight in decision making

Who are our actual users? Students are of course well known to use
Wikipedia excessively.

But do we know how many professionals and other people from the general
public use Wikipedia every day? One of the most active contributors to
de-WP once told the story that he was at a pediatric with his sick child
and the doctor used Wikipedia to confirm his diagnosis - of course
without knowing that the father of his patient had expert knowledge on
how this "second opinion" was written.

I met teachers, university docents, authors, journalists, lawyers,
social workers, telcom technicians and members of pretty much any other
profession, who rely on Wikipedia for a quick lookup of something.

My point is: We don't write for students. Our articles should be on a
level where everyone, including kids understands the introduction and
can find further information in the main text, but we should not dumb
down articles to the needs of school curriculums.

Ciao Henning