I agree, increasing the quality of editors rather than number of editors would increase the quality of information and decrease the propensity of editors to over-write incorrect information.
On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 5:00 PM, Andreas Kolbe <[email protected]> wrote: > > No indeed. That's why I say the question is how to get > > across to > > idiots that they are, in fact, idiots - without breaking > > what clearly > > works fantastically well on Wikipedia. (How to avoid, for > > instance, > > falling into a credentialism death spiral.) > > > I guess it is also worth thinking about our criteria for success. What is > success? Is it to have as many editors as possible? > > I'd suggest it isn't. Editors are undoing each other's work all the time, > and typing millions of words arguing with each other. It is not efficient. > We could say that doesn't matter, because they're all volunteers, but it is > inefficient nonetheless. > > The real criterion for success should be that we have good, > well-researched, stable articles that inform the public. > > I agree with you, David, that credentialism isn't the way forward. But > asking editors, nicely, to please do some research and to check what > scholarly literature is available, in google scholar, in google books, and > in academic publications databases, should not be too much to ask. > > Speaking of academic databases, one thing which would be a great boon would > be to get Wikipedians access to these databases. It's all right for those > who have ready access to a library or university system, but many databases > of academic publications are closed to the general public. You get an > abstract and/or the first page, and that's it: more is not available without > logging in. Often, you can't even buy the paper if you're prepared to shell > out money for it. > > This is something where the Foundation could perhaps help, by asking > universities who support our work whether they would be willing to grant > Wikipedians -- or at least a limited number of Wikipedians -- some sort of > affiliation status, so they could log into these databases the same way > their students do. > > Andreas > > > > > _______________________________________________ > foundation-l mailing list > [email protected] > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l > _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
