[WikiEN-l] Fwd: [Wikipedia-l] Essays on the future of the projects

[SJ]

David Gerard notes that on wikien there are many such essays; and I
believe there are also quite a number on de:wp.  Are there any efforts
to gathering/organizing these essays, similar to efforts to organize
policy?

 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Category:Wikipedia_essays
(250+ entries)

SJ

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com>
Date: Sep 5, 2006 9:27 AM
Subject: Re: [Wikipedia-l] Essays on the future of the projects
To: wikipedia-l at wikimedia.org


On 9/5/06, David Gerard <dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 05/09/06, SJ <2.718281828 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Aaron Swartz has started a series of such essays.  The latest one
> > suggests something I have long suspected, that the huge body of new
> > and anonymous contributors, who often make the first serious stab at
> > an article or provide a needed injection of expertise, are as
> > important to the 'pedias development (if not more so) than the core of
> > dedicated editors.
> > http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/wikiroads
> > http://www.aaronsw.com/weblog/whowriteswikipedia
>
>
> Greg Maxwell is sceptical of the numbers (since Aaron doesn't give
> methodology); since Greg is very good at running interesting numbers
> on the database, I've suggested to each that they contact the other.

It's been a long-standing debate without numbers; hopefully we can
throw data into the mix now.  I know Greg and Aaron were

>> Is anyone else writing long essays these days?  Where are they kept,
>> and how categorized?
>
> Probably and nowhere I can think of, but they should!

Indeed.  It's a shame that some of the good long essays in recent
memory are written off-wiki, in places where they can't be improved
over time (even if it is a public mailing list).  This is an
interesting twist on wikification:
  http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Talk:Who_Writes_Wikipedia%3F

I hope the text itself goes up there soon.  Likewise, for anyone who
has posted a great rant to mailing lists lately.
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Essays
is surprisingly sparse.

SJ


-- 
++SJ