[Foundation-l] Cross-wiki articles

[Ting Chen]

Robert Rohde wrote:
> On Sat, May 2, 2009 at 11:09 AM, Yoni Weiden <yonidebest at gmail.com> wrote:
>   
>> The question is - shouldn't there be one set of standards for all
>> Wikipedias? I think it is "unfair" that I can read about Simpsons episodes
>> in the English Wikipedia, while those how speak Hebrew cannot.
>>     
>
> The German Wikipedia has always had much tighter inclusion criteria
> than English.  While English is open to having an article on every
> Pokemon, every episode of the Simpsons, and lots of other pop culture,
> German has defined inclusion criteria that are much more like a
> traditional encyclopedia in scope.  As a result, they have
> significantly fewer topics.
>
> Andrew Lih, author the Wikipedia Revolution, pointed out a consequence
> of this that I had never appreciated.  Because German is much more
> "encyclopedic" in scope and appearance, they also get taken more
> seriously and are seen as more reliable.  (Flagged revisions and other
> tighter editorial controls also help.)  As a result they have an
> easier time approaching governments and others for assistance, such as
> arranging image donations.
>   

My experience is that people outside of Wikipedia community (the pure 
users or people that only heard of Wikipedia) in Germany don't 
differentiate between the qualities of the language versions. I don't 
think that the quality of the German Wikipedia had the impact on the 
outreach to government or libraries. It is more the organization and 
professionalism of the chapter.

Personally I don't think that take the classical encyclopedia as a 
measure is a good thing. The classical encyclopedia was restrained on 
the unpossibility of to print books in such big volumes. An electronic 
encyclopedia has far more possibilities and if we take an old fashioned 
measure as our measurement we artificially abondane some of the 
possibilities that the new technology offer us.

-- 
Ting

Ting's Blog: http://wingphilopp.blogspot.com/