geni wrote:
2009/1/29 Ray Saintonge:
So what if it takes 3 weeks? So what if there are backlogs? Even accepting the premise that EB can maintain such a breakneck speed, whoever defined this as a race to do things more quickly?
Our readers and our content writers. Speed of updates is a feature much liked by readers (and back when people where doing WPvsEB was often used as a point in wikipedia's favor).
For our content writers the instant results are a significant part of their reward for contributing.
Speed of updates may be a factor for current events, but I see nothing to convince me that EB wants to enter that field. Nor do I see them as competitors to upload the latest plot line of "Desperate Housewives" as soon as it has aired.
Has there been a survey of non-editing readers about the speed of updates, and what that means to them? I suspect that their demands would involve a significantly longer yardstick than the minute. It's not as though we were a newspaper trying to get the latest scoop on its competitor. Compared to Wikinews, Wikipedia should not need to feel that pressure.
I don't share your passion for instant gratification, a concept with problems that extend far beyond the wikis. With flagged revisions our content writers would continue to see the results of their labours immediately. If they are any good at what they do they can also feel confident that the general public will also soon see their changes.
Ian Woollard wrote:
Well, they have less users than us. They have less scope than us, and they're probably growing more slowly than us, and they're not much more reliable than us, and they require people paying them money to be able to edit the articles as well as to read the articles.
In other words we're already far ahead of them. Having people pay for the right to edit can't be a winning strategy; that would justify a claim from our side that they are a vanity press. :-)
I'd say that there's a defacto race there, even if nobody has defined it as such; they're trying to compete with a free, larger competitor before going broke.
If EB is in a race to the bottom their gravity is the only help they need.
Ec