[WikiEN-l] Re: WikiEN-l Digest, Vol 21, Issue 44

Tue Apr 12 22:07:30 UTC 2005

Sorry about the subject lines...this mailing list really needs to be turned into a newsgroup.

Anyway...

Seth Ilys <seth.ilys at gmail.com>
>On Apr 12, 2005 12:29 PM, Blair P. Houghton <blair at houghton.net> wrote:
>> Seth Ilys wrote:
>>> >We're a wiki. Why mess with success?
>
>> Interesting definition of success you have.
>
>
>Are you denying that Wikipedia has been successful?
>
>What has made us one of the top 100 sites on the 'net if we aren't
>doing *something* well?

Now you're changing your definition of success from success as a reference to "doing something well".

And you're applying the fallacy of Appeal to Popularity.

Wikipedia has not been successful.  It's a mess.  It will remain a mess so long as fallacy and POV exist within it, and more of a mess so long as vandalism is permitted and only reverted upon random discovery.

"Charles Matthews" wrote:
>Blair P. Houghton wrote:
>> And while you're tut-tutting a little vandalism, POV and fallacy are polluting the majority of the pages.

>That would be majority as in 50%?  So we have at least 260000 pages with at least a fallacy or a POV problem? 

Sounds like a reasonable ballpark figure.  I know I've edited over half of the pages on which I know something of the subject matter, and I expect those on which I am ignorant have enough errors that someone who does know the subject matter would be happy to fix them.  Sadly, Featured Articles are among the worst offenders of my academic sensibilities.

Ever since I started editing the Wikipedia, I've decided it's fun to edit and might be useful as a source of information to research further, but I'll never cite it as a reference in any reviewable work.

--Blair