[WikiEN-l] Re: Potential Wikipedian growing pains

Wed Sep 21 00:23:46 UTC 2005

How about a more natural approach to the function of the AfD?  Many sites, including Netflix.com, allow users to rate the articles of other users, or at least click on whether or not these articles are helpful.  At Netflix, this determines placement of the review, with the top placed review becoming the default.  Alternate reviews are easily retrievable and could be promoted to the top place if people find them more useful for that subject.

At Wikipedia, we could add a stipulation that if most people find the entire subject of the article not useful, it would be placed on a deletion short-list.  Items on the short-list would automatically be removed to a compressed archive if they ever go more than thirty days without being accessed.  The system could also automatically add any article to the short-list that goes more than six months would being accessed.

The only significant source of contention at Wikipedia is when people try to unduly influence articles.  Yet, it is possible to create a system where unduly influencing articles cannot be achieved.  Many sites have done this on a small basis.  We can get rid of administrators and do it on a large basis here if we are willing to let our influence be based on the quality of our edits and not on the friends we know in high places.

Zephram Stark zephramstark at yahoo.com
432-224-6991

----- Original Message ----- From: "Daniel P. B. Smith" <dpbsmith at verizon.net>
Sent: Tuesday, September 20, 2005 6:03 PM

>> From: Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com>
> 
>>  is there a point in Wikipedia's size where it's current growth
>> will taper off or stop? I don't mean to repeat the old chestnut that
>> knowledge is somehow finite: put in different words, is there a  
>> certain
>> point where contributors will find it far easier to work on existing
>> articles than to contribute new ones?
> 
> Oddly enough, I wonder about the exact opposite. I fear that people  
> enjoy creating new articles far more than they enjoy editing existing  
> articles, and that people look desperately for topics that do not  
> exist yet so that they can be the first to create them. The  
> Wikipedian equivalent of the Slashdot FIRST POST!!!!
> 
> This means that over time a greater proportion of newly created  
> articles will reflect an artificial attempt to find a topic that  
> hasn't been "taken," and a smaller proportion will be reflect a  
> genuine attempt to serve potential readers.
> 
> I do not think its growth will stop. The problem is, will the quality  
> of the articles hold up? There's no obvious reason why it shouldn't,  
> and no obvious reason why it should.
> 
> One reason why it _might_ not hold up is that when Wikipedia was less  
> famous, contributing to it required a greater interest in the project  
> and a greater commitment to the project's ideals. As it becomes more  
> and more familiar, it is possible that we will see an increasing  
> proportion of new "articles" that are really paragraph-long newbie  
> tests.
> 
> To tell the truth, I think many of the "articles" that land on AfD  
> are best not regarded as articles at all, but as elaborate newbie  
> tests OR as badly executed article requests. I'm thinking of substubs  
> that convey no information at all except the fact that someone either  
> a) genuinely wanted an article on that topic, or b) simply wanted to  
> experience the pleasure of creating an article.
> 
> I've been casting "votes" recently in AfD that say "delete, and enter  
> a request for the article." So far, nobody but me seems to think this  
> is a good idea.
> 
> --
> Daniel P. B. Smith, dpbsmith at verizon.net
> "Elinor Goulding Smith's Great Big Messy Book" is now back in print!
> Sample chapter at http://world.std.com/~dpbsmith/messy.html
> Buy it at http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1403314063/

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