[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Robert S. Horning]

On 09/19/2010 06:52 PM, wiki-list at phizz.demon.co.uk wrote:
> On 20/09/2010 00:26, Robert S. Horning wrote:
>    
>>
>> I'm not entirely sure how accurate this is, so I'm just making a raw
>> conjecture here that is completely unsupported by facts other than
>> perhaps by general observations:
>>
>> Is it possible that the problem with the humanities-related articles on
>> Wikipedia has more to do with the lack of an existing culture of
>> "copyleft" or public domain collaboration?  It has taken literally
>> decades of effort that go back even a couple of decades earlier of
>> similar efforts to put together what is today the "open source movement"
>> that has produced things like Linux, the GNU tools, and software like
>> Apache.  Wikipedia is a product of this environment too, where many of
>> those who have participated in developing open source software don't
>> hesitate to at least add a couple of paragraphs to Wikipedia.
>>
>>      
> Linux, Apache, and the GNU Tools were the work of a handful of people.
> Others have come along and added a bit here or there or fixed something
> or other but I bet that if I were to look at the core source code for
> Emacs to day it wouldn't be that much different from when I worked on it
> 20 years ago.
>
> Software changes either work or they don't and any change ought to be
> testable to demonstrate that it adds some new feature or fixes something
> broken. But there is a problem with software changes in that most
> changes tend to degrade the overall quality of the product in some way.
> Overtime, unless someone steps in and does a rewrite the code becomes a
> mess, and it happened one change at a time.
>
> The same is true of wikipedia articles, edit by edit, they tend to
> degrade. There comes a point when they are 'done' and they knob
> polishers need to be told to bugger off and leave them alone.
>    
While I appreciate extending the analogy, you are missing my point 
here.  Geeks have been used to the philosophy of collaboratively written 
documents (including software) for quite some time and this was 
ingrained into at least a significant sub-set of technologically minded 
people for quite some time.  It is this culture of sharing with one 
another and having no stigma of sharing your work and letting 
potentially millions of others poke at your work, tweak it or even trash it.

It isn't just this software but the tens of thousands of other 
applications that have been built and shared with the world.  Wikipedia 
was formed from this community where sharing this kind of information 
was even a second nature.  Indeed it has been encouraged for people of a 
technical nature to share the information they know with one another.

What I'm trying to point out is that a similar sub-culture within the 
community that works on arts and literature is such a minority that you 
might as well not really pay attention to it.  Certainly academia isn't 
embracing Wikipedia for multiple reasons.  That may be part of it as 
those in an academic situation tend to be a minority in technical fields 
but tend to dominate those with studies in the humanities.  They are 
also hesitant to work collaboratively and even when that happens it 
tends to be very small groups... not groups of dozens or hundreds 
involved.  A paper on physics may have hundreds of co-authors, but a 
similar academic paper on Greek Mythology may only have a couple authors 
or a single author.  This is a cultural difference that can't be 
understated.

I should also state here this is something that isn't just with 
Wikipedia but all of the Wikimedia projects to some extent or another.  
Wikibooks and Wikiversity are both tech-heavy for many of the same 
reasons, and this even creeps into some of the other Wikimedia projects too.

Promotion of Wikipedia can help, but it is a systemic issue and a 
generational one too.  Throwing the doors open and a little bit of 
advertising isn't going to help here, other than as a very long terms 
strategy.  I'm suggesting that it isn't something that is going to be 
solved overnight, but that I do think over time there will eventually be 
some strong contributors in these areas.... but it certainly will be 
slower in terms of pick-up from what has been the case for technology 
articles.  The examples cited earlier I believe are being cherry picked 
and are not wholly representative of Wikipedia.

Efforts to recruit help to Wikipedia are useful, but at the same time we 
shouldn't be changing the nature of the project either to attract some 
of the curmudgeons.  Essential aspects of Wikimedia projects such as the 
ability for "anybody" to edit, openness, and an egalitarian attitude 
toward fellow editors is something that shouldn't be forgotten.

--  Robert Horning
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