Jimmy Wales wrote:
As far as I can determine, and I am very much aware that I am here
prejudicing the terms of debate, this is a cultural battle between
wikipedians and people who have stumbled into this cool site they heard
about on CNN where you can write whatever the hell you want and argue
with people for fun.
I mentioned this a while back, and didn't get much response at the
time, but we do encourage people to create accounts ("Registering
a free account takes only a few seconds, and has many benefits.")
irrespective of whether they intend to contribute usefully or not.
We're not like a provincial university where the local legislature
has decreed that that everyone has to be accepted in regardless of
ability. Given that we now have a surfeit of volunteers, perhaps we
should be thinking about ways to gently raise the bar, rewarding
the good editors while inducing the poor ones to find another wiki
more in line with their talents.
Stan