[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Omer Admani]

I agree, increasing the quality of editors rather than number of editors
would increase the quality of information and decrease the propensity  of
editors to over-write incorrect information.

On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Andreas Kolbe <jayen466 at yahoo.com> wrote:

> > No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get
> > across to
> > idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking
> > what clearly
> > works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for
> > instance,
> > falling into a credentialism death spiral.)
>
>
> I guess it is also worth thinking about our criteria for success. What is
> success? Is it to have as many editors as possible?
>
> I'd suggest it isn't. Editors are undoing each other's work all the time,
> and typing millions of words arguing with each other. It is not efficient.
> We could say that doesn't matter, because they're all volunteers, but it is
> inefficient nonetheless.
>
> The real criterion for success should be that we have good,
> well-researched, stable articles that inform the public.
>
> I agree with you, David, that credentialism isn't the way forward. But
> asking editors, nicely, to please do some research and to check what
> scholarly literature is available, in google scholar, in google books, and
> in academic publications databases, should not be too much to ask.
>
> Speaking of academic databases, one thing which would be a great boon would
> be to get Wikipedians access to these databases. It's all right for those
> who have ready access to a library or university system, but many databases
> of academic publications are closed to the general public. You get an
> abstract and/or the first page, and that's it: more is not available without
> logging in. Often, you can't even buy the paper if you're prepared to shell
> out money for it.
>
> This is something where the Foundation could perhaps help, by asking
> universities who support our work whether they would be willing to grant
> Wikipedians -- or at least a limited number of Wikipedians -- some sort of
> affiliation status, so they could log into these databases the same way
> their students do.
>
> Andreas
>
>
>
>
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