[WikiEN-l] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles

[Charles Matthews]

Carcharoth wrote:
> On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Carl (CBM) <cbm.wikipedia at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> <snip>
>
>   
>> I would be much more interested in a system for expert refereeing than
>> the present FA system.  To some extent, the current "peer review"
>> process can already be used for this, but I don't expect to see a real
>> change in this direction until the successor to Wikipedia.
>>     
>
>   
<snip>
> 2) Sometimes the article will be savaged by external reviewers who
> will know more about the breadth and depth of available sources, and
> will (in many cases correctly) point out that the article (although
> superficially good at first glance) doesn't really use the right
> sources, or the existing sources in the right way.
>   
Yes, that seems plausible. Encyclopedia articles are not a form really 
designed for the rigours of serious peer review (the typical five years 
to a doctorate versus maybe 15 hours to write a long piece from scratch 
- it's not a fair fight). I wonder if it is quite the right point, 
though. Judging by problems I hit from time to time - [[tensor]] is a 
current problem child - the real shortage is "article doctors" rather 
than "critics". The  Holy Grail here is a topic expert who also knows 
enough about the (routine, I'd say) basic procedures of upgrading 
articles by restructuring and copyediting. It is so common for 
apparently serious problems to be lightly disguised writing issues - a 
small misconception mixed in with things that can be expressed much better.

Charles