Risker >>In 2005, the English Wikipedia had less than half the number of articles it has now.
Hs anyone made a serious study of what these articles actually contain? >>Only a tiny number of articles were considered of high enough quality to >>be "featured" in 2005; that number has grown exponentially at the same time as quality standards for featured content has become more rigorous. I think the featured articles are generally of merit. I would never deny that. >>Can the content of all our projects be improved? Of course it can; even >>our highest quality content benefits from periodic review and improvement. My point was rather that the content in certain areas is abysmal and easily improved. Linguistics, economics, sociology and of course philosophy are in a terrible state. >>I'd suggest, however, that the progress of only a handful of the 12 >>million articles and files across the WMF group is probably not the best way to assess the overall quality of the project. Well featured articles are a handful of the 12 million articles aren't they? The only way to deal with this issue is methodically. Take any humanities subject, and compare the quality and proportionality of the treatment with any standard reference work on the same subject. My strong sense, in my own area of specialisation, is that Wikipedia is very poor. Nathan >>You are, and have been, committed to several conclusions about Wikipedia - that the idea of an editable encyclopedia itself is fatally flawed, that it is unduly oriented to topics of interest to "the masses", and that the community and its bureaucracy are [sic] hopefully corrupt and ineffective. I don't see an argument here. I don't think that Wikipedia is fatally flawed, by any means. I have pointed out areas of weakness. On the point about 'the masses', surely you agree there is a balance to strike between appealing to the popular, and 'education'. Education by definition is allowing people to acquire knowledge, stuff they wouldn't have got for themselves without help. I have been a teacher, and I am strongly committed to that ideal. And there is strong evidence of corruption, but as I was banned for pointing that out, it is unfair of you to bring it up, I think. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
