[WikiEN-l] The London Review of Books on Wikipedia

[Charles Matthews]

Cormac Lawler wrote:
>
> I think what's interesting here is asking: how does Wikipedia harness 
> the energy of the public (for want of a better word) in a way that can 
> be more productive, useful (or at least less brain-sporkingly 
> nonsensical) than a newspaper open comment section does?
Of course just about any model is superior to encouraging low-level 
ranting.  The "open comments" are generally less interesting than a 
letters page because there may be no filter. Or, as in the case of the 
Sunday Times it seems, there is moderation but only to save 
embarrassment to the paper. WP's basic idea of "merciless editing" is 
one way, and it gets to one major issue at the root: touchtyping skills 
don't make you a great writer, while basic copyediting skills can 
transform rubbish prose.
>
> But I was struck by how in the LRB review of Andrew's book, the 
> reviewer singled out the collaboratively-written afterword as better 
> written than Andrew's book, which he found "full of interest but 
> rather indulgent, containing too much incidental detail about people 
> Lih wants to please." I can't imagine Andrew is fully happy about that 
> (!) - but it's an interesting take.
Time for one of my current pet theories: the "triangle of takes" on 
upgrading WP. Andrew Lih represents one vertex, as you can see in his 
recent NYT interview, where he cites popular culture and politics as the 
drivers in WP. Basically this is about being very current in our 
coverage. Another vertex is the FA people: in theory they don't care 
about the topic, do care about optimising the writing to the point where 
there is no obvious way to improve quality. The third vertex is 
comprehensiveness. Lih's book - well, I haven't read it yet (sorry, 
Andrew), but you can see it fitting roughly in with where I locate him 
on the triangle. The "incidental detail" is often how popular culture or 
political journalism is (deliberately) written, rather than trying for 
in-depth or serious. 

Anyway, I commend the triangle: currency, comprehensiveness, quality. 
Most people around the wiki can probably plot themselves somewhere in 
the interior, and this gives a kind of map of prorities.

Charles