[WikiEN-l] Encyclopaedia standards

[Zoney]

On Sat, 22 Jan 2005 09:46:57 -0000, apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk
<apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk> wrote:
> The application of encyclopaedia standards must surely depend on the
> quality and experience of the editors. There does not seem to be a
> clear way of assessing this. I come to Wikipedia by way of writing
> for biographical dictionaries, working for a publisher of academic
> books, as well as researching and writing academic articles and books
> my field of the history of technology. I therefore automatically
> apply those standards to my contributions to Wikipedia. I can also
> apply those standards to pages which might need tweaking. When more
> editors with my kind of background can be persuaded to contribute on
> a regular basis then encyclopaedic standards will spread.
> 
> Tony Woolrich
> Canal Side, Huntworth, Bridgwater, Somerset UK
> Phone (44) 01278 663020
> Email apw at ap-woolrich.co.uk
> 

A major issue is not to get dishearted by the Wikipedia content that
is genuinely barely coherent English! The majority of Wikipedia
content is certainly at least "average" quality and there are whole
areas that are indeed written to a high encyclopaedic quality. However
- it's not necessarily the case that the major articles are the well
written ones - and one has to accept this also. For example, the
parent article for all of Wikipedia's rail transport topics, [[Rail
transport]] is not well laid out, or a comprehensive neat summary of
the whole area, covering all appropriate sections.

Now the typical Wikipedian reaction is "so fix it", but we are all
volunteers. Particularly hard work will always be in need of attention
- only slowly being attended to. Eventually I hope to tweak the
article in question for instance, but it is a mammoth task. There are
many smaller articles I'd rather work on!

Working on Wikipedia requires some level of immunity to it's darker
sides. For every VfD'ed and speedied article, there are undoubtedly
pieces of pure rubbish that escape deletion for some time. Even worse
are the articles requiring "cleanup" that no-one wants to attend to.

If you get dishearted, go read some of the better articles on topics
you enjoy. (Don't necessarily just browse featured articles, you may
encounter the one "featured article" that shouldn't be). Apart from
anything else, browsing topics you enjoy is a better way of
contributing to Wikipedia. For me, editing Irish-related articles is
always pure bliss - as it is so easy for one in the know to ensure
that they are accurate!

Zoney

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