[WikiEN-l] a valid criticism

[Elisabeth Bauer]

Jimmy Wales wrote:

> I do not think that the fact that Jane Fonda and Bill Gates are
> controversial figures is the real answer here, by the way.  They are,
> but the problems I'm complaining about in the articles is not that they
> are biased, nor that they focus too much on the controversies, etc.
> 
> It's that they are badly written.  A confusing mishmash of random facts
> not shaped into a coherent whole.  Others have written eloquently on
> this, and on why this might be the case.  The puzzle, though, is: what
> can be done about it.
> 
> Project outsiders might suggest only allowing "expert writers" to work
> on such articles.  I think any of us can explain how that's much easier
> said than done.

I answer with a quote from someone you know:

   To attact and retain the participation of experts, there would have
   to be little patience for those who do not understand or agree with
   Wikipedia's mission, or even for those pretentious mediocrities who
   are not able to work with others constructively and recognize when
   there are holes in their knowledge (collectively, probably the most
   disruptive group of all). A less tolerant attitude toward disruption
   would make the project more polite, welcoming, and indeed open to
   the vast majority of intelligent, well-meaning people on the Internet.

In my view, wikipedia has to undergo a paradigm change if it really 
wants to succeed in creating a good encyclopedia. Some answers in this 
thread are symptomatic for this: You shouldn't be forced to explain a 
revert of a bad edit (of course it's good if you still do).

Currently wikipedia forces editors to go through silly processes and 
discussions to defend good edits. How many highlevel editors are willing 
to do this all the time? The physics professor may explain relativity 
theory once to a clueless wikipedian who just put his wisdom into the 
article, but if he has to do it every week, he'll pack his belongings 
and go to another project to spend his time on.

And it's even worse with style improvements if you have to argue with 
bad writers why an article should be coherent text and not randomly 
assembled item lists.

We shouldn't give up the principle of open editing but we should make 
clear now from the beginning that we seek good writers and knowledgeable 
people, not anyone. Yes, anyone _can_ edit an article. But not anyone 
_should_ edit any article.

greetings,
elian