[WikiEN-l] Oour quality could rival Encyclopedia Britannica (was: Guardia...

Mon Oct 24 16:16:24 UTC 2005

In a message dated 10/24/2005 11:53:44 A.M. Eastern Standard Time,  
Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com writes:

This  tells me two things:

(1) We don't pay enough attention to quality.  Lousy articles can lie
around for months or years, collecting  dust.

(2) When we put our minds to it, we can polish one of these  decaying
relics and out-do Britannica!

What conclusion can we draw  from this? I'd like to hear some discussion
on this,  please.

I don't know about conclusions.  Nor do I really know what kind of  checks 
and balances exist for catching the garbage that all too often finds its  way 
into articles on the site.

A few weeks back, I came across a passage that flat-out said that the only  
contact the outside world had with sub-Saharan Africa in pre-modern times was  
related to the spread of diseases like malaria.  This incredibly ignorant  
language had been in the article for almost a year and-a-half, completely  
undisturbed.  And there supposedly is a effort of some sort to beef  
up/improve/contribute articles on Africa.  The contributor was anonymous --  probably a 
racist troll.

It surprises me not one whit that the reviewers found Wikipedia to be an  
unreliable source of information.  I've found it to be rife with  
mis/disinformation.  In fact, it's about the only thing that keeps me  coming back to edit.  
It's a noble effort, but some of the things I've read  are nothing short of 
shameful.

deeceevoice