On Thu, May 8, 2014 at 12:48 AM, Thyge ltl.privat@gmail.com wrote:
mr Andreas Kolbe, I would like to tell you, that your mailings here strike me as being negative and unhelpful.
:)
If you have any suggestions for improvement, please put them forward, since this is an interesting topic. The "undisciplined crowd of random people" is what the world comprises,
That's not all the world comprises. There are universities.
and a subset of those are trying their best to bring knowledge to the world and appreciate any help you may provide to improve and measure quality.
As for study design, I'd suggest you begin with a *random* sample of frequently-viewed Wikipedia articles in a given topic area (e.g. those within the purview of WikiProject Medicine), have them assessed by an independent panel of academic experts, and let them publish their results.
All of that is quite doable. You begin with a list of articles from the database, agree a method of random selection, and let experts do their job.
If the results are good, it redounds to Wikipedia's credit. If the results are bad, it provides valuable feedback to the community, an indication of Wikipedia's reliability to the public, an opportunity for further analysis both within and without the Wikipedia community, and an indication of where quality improvement efforts should be focused.
These are all outcomes that are fully in line with the Foundation's mission.