[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Risker]

Well, Peter, it all depends on what metrics you wish to use when deciding
where to spend your money.  In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than
half the number of articles it has now. Dozens of projects in existence
today weren't even started in 2005; in some cases, they are the only online
reference sources in existence for that language. Commons was a fledgling
project, as was Wikisource (which also now has projects in many languages).
Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to be
"featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as
quality standards for featured content has become more rigorous.

Can the content of all our projects be improved?  Of course it can; even our
highest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement.  I'd
suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12 million
articles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to
assess the overall quality of the project.  You are, as always, entitled to
your own views on that perspective.

Risker/Anne

On 16 September 2010 15:29, Peter Damian <peter.damian at btinternet.com>wrote:

> > How would locking Wikipedia down fulfill the mission to collect all the
> > educational information known.
> Information changes constantly, new information becomes available
> constantly, and new material gets added to old articles constantly.
> I myself just added some new detail to an article within the past week.
>
> That's just what I am disputing.  Take the article on England's greatest
> philosopher
>
> http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/william-of-ockham.html
>
> It has actually shrunk since 2005.  It contains hardly anything of
> William's
> thought, and most of it is plagiarised from other sources anyway. And there
> is very little new information coming out about Ockham.  The Cambridge
> companion contains 16 pages about him.  Or take the SEP, which is online
> http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/ockham/ and is the model of what an
> article should be.  Wikipedia should avoid being as technical as the SEP,
> but there is a place for a well-written and accessible article about
> Ockham.
> Why isn't there one?
>
> SEP is also accepting donations, why shouldn't I give money to that?
>
>
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