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