[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Peter Damian]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Nathan" <nawrich at gmail.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 5:05 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?


> Peter wrote:
>
> 2. An initiative to highlight 5 "top importance" articles and get them to 
> GA
> or FA.  There are very few FA status articles, compared to the rest of the
> project.
>
> 3.  Another initiative to re-classify the top 50 articles in terms of
> importance and quality (I looked at this and some are wildly out of line).
>
> <endquote>
>
> These are obviously good ideas and the sort of effort that most
> wikiprojects engage in. There's no question that an active philosophy
> wikiproject could pursue this type of initiative and have an impact,
> but I thought the premise to this discussion was that the participants
> of this particular wikiproject had been driven off and left the 'pedia
> without the resources to attempt this sort of thing.

There is a chance that if there were a high-profile effort to acknowledge 
the damage that has been done. One thing that has changed since 2006 is that 
there is a lot more emphasis on citation, and a lot more editors understand 
the distinction between primary and secondary sources and so on. The FA 
process is still being run by good people generally the 'infrastructure' of 
Wikipedia is better than it was then.

I can't speak for the other editors though.  It is rather disappointing when 
Sarah (who is herself an example of a qualified editor who understands 
Wikipedia thoroughly and is a great asset in every way) says "I tend to give 
up in the face of this, rather than argue, because it feels pointless."

That sort of makes me want to give up too.  The problem she is talking about 
is real, and I don't have the sense that many people on this forum 
acknowledge it.

Peter