[WikiEN-l] Most read US newpaper blasts Wikipedia
Michael P Hopcroft
michael at mphpress.com
Wed Nov 30 13:38:01 UTC 2005
kosebamse at gmx.net wrote:
> David Gerard wrote:
>
>
>> The problem is that we peaked way too early. The site is late-alpha or
>> early beta at best, and should have big 1995-style yellow and black
>> "UNDER CONSTRUCTION" GIFs with really bad aliasing on most pages.
>>
>
> The even more basic problem is everybody and their dog laments about article
> quality, yet nobody is bold enough to tell the world that we have already
> way too much garbage and can't even tell what is garbage and what is not. It
> has long been obvious to the insiders, and I am actually amazed that the
> rest of the world is only now beginning to realize it. Wikipedians need to
> realize that no amount of mediocre-to-shitty articles can compensate for a
> lack of quality content.
> A helpful approach would be to stop accepting new articles, take our
> content, scrutinise it and rewrite it from zero. Rewrite the encyclopedia
> and let the warriors/nutters/clueless kids have their fun, but not on our
> servers. Ah, the charm of radical solutions.
>
An even more radical, but ultimately rational, approach would be to
admit that the Wikipedia experiment is a disastrous failure and shut the
site down completely and permanently.
A project with two equally important goals that are utterly incompatible
by definition -- why was it launched in the first place? Wouldn't any
rational observer have seen a result like this as not only possible but
likely, if not inevitable?
The USA Today article makes a case not just for the obliteration of
Wikipedia but ultimately for taking down the Internet itself.
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