[WikiEN-l] Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia

[Matthew Larsen]

I think this is a good idea,but I have my reservations, my main concerns being:

1) If there is a stable edit of an article, people will revert from
the latest edit to a stable version

2) If something was edited again after declared stable, the article
will no longer be stable and seen as such (unless the viewer looks in
the history - assuming stable tags are put on article page)

2) People might not bother looking at unstable edits at all

3) It will probably take the review board a long time to get through a
substantial amount of articles, if they even agree

4) If something is considered stable people may not want to edit it
for fear of ruining someone elses work, being labelled disruptive or
making an otherwise 99% accurate topic non-stable (providing it is a
minor change)

5) Defining something as stable is a big step and needs ideally to be
done by proffessionals

6) As someone said earlier this isnt truely in the spirit of the project

7) People are fully aware that the content may not be fool-proof,
users take their own risks (If it is a proffessional / academic im
sure they have other places to look for information)

8) Finally, as with all systems, it is open to abuse (favouritsm,
bribing, abuse of position etc)

These are of course my views and would appreciate sensible replies (if any)

Regards,


On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 17:43:13 +0100 (BST), Matt R
<matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk> wrote:
> --- Delirium <delirium at hackish.org> wrote:
> 
> > Does anyone have any objections to that other than the ones I already
> > mentioned when I first proposed it?
> 
> You mentioned electricity availability. I would add that digital distribution
> requires some IT skills by those receiving it; paper only requires literacy.
> There are financial costs with computers apart from the initial outlay, namely,
> maintenance. Computers develop faults -- books just get musty.
> 
> 
> 
> -- Matt (User:Matt Crypto)
> 
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-- 
Matthew Larsen
   > mat.larsen at gmail.com
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