[WikiEN-l] Another notability casualty
Abd ul-Rahman Lomax
abd at lomaxdesign.com
Sun Mar 7 02:04:19 UTC 2010
At 01:10 PM 3/6/2010, Carcharoth wrote:
>I agree that something driven by reader choice would be good, but
>still with editorial guidance.
With a print encyclopedia, there is a publisher who is in charge.
However, the publisher is dependent upon the buyers of encyclopedias,
who are generally either readers or involved with readers and serving
readers more directly.
The publisher then manages the editors, according to the standards it
develops, either to please the readers, or to please the founders and
investors (who may have independent motives, for better or for worse.)
The editors review and edit contributions by writers, to make them
conform to the criteria set by the publisher. Good editors encourage
writers and, at the same time, contain what they do within
established boundaries. Sometimes, I believe, writers are called
"editors," particularly if it's a writer coordinating any
synthesizing content from a number of writers, but I'm sure DGG can
contribute more and better detail. Then, if this is the case, what
I'm calling editors may be called "managing editors."
Wikipedia mashed it all together, resulting in the predictable:
massive confusion of roles, and the classic cats-and-dogs struggle
between writers and editors, in the worst form. Classic publishing
structure was designed to moderate and mediate this, for efficiency.
Good writers are hard to find! So too, really good editors.
The Wikipedia model was innovative, in a way, but did not adequately
consider efficiency. That seemed to be fine when new editors were
arriving in droves. In the long run, the lack of efficient process
will kill the project, if something doesn't change.
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