[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia topics (was Re: Darren at nocuffs)

[Steve Bennett]

On 5/19/06, geni <geniice at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> People tend to write about their hobies rather than the stuff they
> have more formal expertise in. I tend to write about canals rather
> than chemisty for example.


<rant> That's just selfish how dare you! </rant>

Hmm, it's true...the stuff I know the most about I write the least about,
mostly because I enjoy Wikipedia as a learning experience. Probably like
lots of people, I'll correct obvious errors if I see them, but I don't
really want to write essays on topics I know well, or enter into a
collaborative editing process on a topic I know professionally.

All this leaves the question of how to improve areas that are unlikely to
have hobbyists, like the ones I mentioned. Apart from people changing
careers, I can't see who would be suddenly taking a huge interest in these
areas, enough to research and write about them properly, with the time to do
so.

We know that the quality and depth of Wikipedia does not grow evenly across
all knowledge areas. But there are areas that are growing so slowly that we
may at some stage need to specifically address them to bring them up to
speed.

Anyone know of any Wikiprojects or Wikipedia processes that get areas
improved by people with no prior interest/expertise? Collaboration of the
week is one that comes to mind, but if that's all, it would take about
17,000 [1]years to get all of Wikipedia up to a good (not even FA)
standard...:)

Steve
[1] 900,000 articles in need of help / 52 collaborations per year.