[WikiEN-l] Microsoft kills Encarta

[Ian Woollard]

On 31/03/2009, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> There's change, and then there is the seeming of change. I don't think its
> cynical to oppose processes that appear to be helpful, but may actually set
> progress back.

I'm pretty sure it's inevitable in the long run though. In the early
days of anything like wikipedia drastic changes are going to be the
norm; the articles aren't worth protecting much, almost any change
improves the articles, in some cases even those by vandals! Later,
when the articles are in a generally good state, changes have to
mulled over more carefully, because you're protecting the information
and effort that was put there over several years; most changes are
likely to lower the quality.

So you would expect that vandal protection and stabilisation and
quality control in general will need beefing up as the wikipedia
approaches a finish.

The only question in my mind is how soon or late we do this, not
whether we do this.

It looks like there's a convincing argument that says that BLP
articles need it right now, so that's the current need, and it will
spread out into the wikipedia from there; perhaps into FA quality
articles after that.

> Nathan

-- 
-Ian Woollard

We live in an imperfectly imperfect world. Life in a perfectly
imperfect world would be *much* better. Life in an imperfectly perfect
world would be pretty ghastly though.