On Mon, 3 Oct 2005, Tony Sidaway wrote:
On 10/3/05, Mark Pellegrini mapellegrini@comcast.net wrote:
Consider the example articles Tony pointed at. If those articles "Exemplify Wikipedia's best articles", then he has rather low expectations. The featured article criteria are the standards we hold articles to, and every single one those articles is lacking (as Geni pointed out). Is holding articles to a high standard a bad thing? I would hope not.
Actually I don't claim that those articles exemplify anything except acceptable content that would be okay on the main page. I don't think much of featured article, as you're aware, and I regard the process as largely a waste of time.
I have a different view of Wikipedia's strengths--I think we're really good at producing so-so, useful but not perfect articles, and that we should spend energy trying to maximise our production rate at this level. I view the FA process as masturbatory, self-congratulatory, and of low impace on the project as a whole.
I also feel that it's also a little dishonest to put such massage content on the main page, when so much of the best that Wikipedia has to offer comprises mediocrely written articles that tell you pretty much what you need to know, and generally do it in less than a screenful of information and without pointless fripperies such as pictures.
(I pretty much agree.)
How about just random articles?
Serving the "best" articles as features serves no purpose for me, other than polishing our own shield, which serves us how?
The FAs are likely to be interesting and well written yes, but unlikely to motivate any improvements to them through casual peer review, unless a motivated expert with time happens along, which is rare.
This "average user" peer review could be better directed and generate more feedback and improvements if the articles were instead randomly chosen from the new stock. The probability that the random visitor would contribute to them would be greater and the average "image" we give, would reflect the actual truth of what an average wikipedia contribution has to offer. A dip in our image perhaps, but also a rapid rise in contributions?
Especially new, young articles should be "hardened" thus. When the fixes per readers -ratio falls below a certain level, the articles should be considered more mature, or "hardened", and be less exposed to random visitors.
I would much rather expose the weaknesses of wikipedia content to the eyes of masses, than just the crown jewels, as it is the masses that make wikipedia what it is and this would get the maximum benefit. As for striving for excellence and crown jewels, perhaps Google might sponsor some competitions?
Not that any of this has a great deal of significance one way or the other, IMO. :-)
// Jei