[Wikipedia-l] Stan's evolutionary concept

Wed Jan 5 00:58:57 UTC 2005

Stan has voiced a very important theoretical point that defines the whole 
mechanism of Wikipedia. It also resolves (or rationalises) some of Larry's 
concerns.
Articles develop Darwinistically. They emerge from primordial soup 
(substubs, anon newbie edits) and evolve as more people add material.
 From this point, there are two types of articles: those that attract 
interest and those that do not. This is easily compared to evolutionary 
selection pressures. Lifeforms that develop under extreme circumstances are 
simply more adapted than those that have had free reign without being 
predated upon.
Articles under scrutiny get better (vandalism to [[Jew]] or [[Holocaust]] 
is reverted quicker than vandalism to [[Metabolic syndrome]] due to 
Watchlist and "vested contributor" exposure). Articles out of the limelight 
perform much worse - inaccuracies are not corrected, vandalism is removed 
by other anons (yep, this happens), etc. These are the ones that are poorly 
sourced, inundated with irrelevant external links, sometimes edit warred 
over a bit, but generally don't reach anything close to featured article 
quality.
Stan is completely right that effective contributors eventually carry the 
day. There is so much to write about, to improve, to edit. He ignores the 
big POV dinosaurs, who do eventually get blocked for personal attacks or 
sockpuppetry, but that just proves the point.

I don't completely disagree with Larry on the accuracy issues for these 
"underperforming articles". They are just not getting the attention they 
deserve. There are a few solutions. Most involve automatic Vfd, but it can 
be replaced with "cleanup" by inclusionists:
* Vfd an article that has not been edited for 6 months (or 12, or 18)
* Vfd an article that is on nobody's watchlist
* Vfd orphaned articles
* Vfd an article that has STILL not been put in a category (other than "stub")

The above is the pruning effort of unviable lifeforms on Wikipedia. Some 
articles should be allowed to die gracefully. Others may be revived by 
vigorous spring cleanup. Anyway, this amorphous mass of poorly edited 
articles should get more attention that it is getting right now.

Jfdwolff