[WikiEN-l] Our quality could rival Encyclopedia Britannica

[David Gerard]

Charles Matthews wrote:

>There are these other challenges:
>- quality writing (doesn't come easy)


I'd like everyone here who thinks they're a pretty good writer to
middle-click "Random page" twenty times and rewrite any crappy prose
you find without sacrificing any factual content. I'll be doing this
tonight.


>- get the other breaking-new media to say 'uncle'


So far, asking nicely is much more Wikimedia-ish ;-)


>- put hard-copy encyclopedias out of business


Nah. I'd rather see if we can synergise with them. I understand
Brockhaus is trying to work out how the heck to work *with* de:
Wikipedia instead of getting economically trampled by [[worse is
better]]. Britannica has really quite a lot to be arrogant about, but
when you're already haemorrhaging red ink, then arrogance is just that
close to hubris.

OTOH, any Wikipedian who runs down the general quality of Britannica
is IMO being foolish. They do set a *consistently* very high standard.
I suspect Wikipedia will always have about the same percentages of
great/good/mediocre/rubbish articles as it expands, we need to find
ways to get people to find the good stuff more easily.


- d.