[WikiEN-l] 2007 Nobel Prizes and the Completeness of Wikipedia

[charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com]

RLS wrote

> On 10/17/07, charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com
> <charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> > Well, OK. There are numerous examples of what I meant. I keep on finding lists in user space. But what I'm not talking about is just having one master list. I'm talking about manageable topic lists created by all those interested in this kind of thing. _There is no need to create a central listing_.
 
> Excepting that a central listing makes it MUCH easier for those who
> say "I feel like writing an article" to find something to write it
> about; 

I dispute that. For some lists I find that are in areas I understand quite well, I'm like a fox in a henhouse. Lists of requested articles, for example, tend to stagnate after a while. 

>or for those who say "I want to do something to help today, but
> I'm not sure what" to find a project they can contribute to.  Small
> lists spread throughout project space or user space won't appreciably
> help the speed at which the articles about these topics are actually
> written.

You need to justify that. The current position is that there are lists spread around, with people who don't in many cases realise what else there is. We could make that phenomenon of realisation more efficient, without having to centralize everything. Actually what works on Wikipedia is a measure of work being distributed around, and a measure of linking and communication. 

So the point I was making is certainly not that we need more killer lists. (You'll find people who assume that the 1911 Britannica list was "finished", but I keep finding bits that were missed.) We probably need

- more recognition that at 2Ma the finding of new topics has become a bit more like skilled work
- more linking from list to list in a "see also" fashion
- a forum for people who like this kind of work.

Charles

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