[WikiEN-l] Slipping quality as Wikipedia gets bigger (formerly Can you trust Wikipedia?)

[Michael Turley]

On 10/30/05, Tom Cadden <thomcadden at yahoo.ie> wrote:
>
> One problem is that as Wikipedia gets bigger, the odds
> are that some articles will get substandard edits but
> no-one will notice, because the people who previously
> worked on the articles will be working on newer
> articles. I was off Wikipedia for a month and when I
> came back I noticed that a host of articles I had
> keeping an eye on because they were in my area of
> expertise had had some appalling edits done. Most of
> the people who had brought the articles up to a very
> high standard had either left Wikipedia (some driven
> away from the frustration of trying to maintain
> quality, or because they had other commitments
> elsewhere), were working elsewhere on Wikipedia, or
> were simply fed up constantly proofing edits in those
> articles.
>
> We need to be able to in effect save articles that
> achieve a high encyclopædic quality as a form of
> permanent template, with subsequent edits perhaps
> being worked on and discussed elsewhere before
> inclusion. Otherwise the danger is that articles,
> having climbed to high quality will slip down to
> drivel. I noticed that a couple slipped from an A
> standard to D through a series of poor edits that
> weren't noticed by people who knew the facts on the
> topic. Articles that were better than equivalent
> articles in Brittanica, etc suddenly were reduced
> through a handful of edits to third rate high school
> essay standard.
>
> The real danger is that the bigger Wikipedia gets the
> more poor edits will slip through. In terms of quality
> we may go backward rather than forward. This is likely
> to become a bigger problem, and Wikipedia's
> credibility may well rest on how we deal with it.
>
> Thom Cadden

Please name a few of these articles in serious decay.  I am very
interested in seeing several examples of this.  So far, all I've seen
is vague affirmations that this indeed is happening.  I don't doubt
that it has happened, but I'd like to have a look to better understand
the trouble.

--
Michael Turley
User:Unfocused