[Wikipedia-l] The New Yorker on Wikipedia

Tue Jul 25 05:19:40 UTC 2006

On 7/24/06, maru dubshinki <marudubshinki at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 7/24/06, Berto <albertoserra at ukr.net> wrote:
> > >But despite the occasional cluelessness or error, there are some
> > >genuinely interesting bits in there, even for a hardened editor like
> > >meself:
> > >"Wattenberg and Viégas, of I.B.M., note that the vast majority of
> > >Wikipedia edits consist of deletions and additions rather than of
> > >attempts to reorder paragraphs or to shape an entry as a whole, and
> > >they believe that Wikipedia's twenty-five-line editing window deserves
> > >some of the blame."
> >
> > Yeah... structure is an issue. Section edit makes it easy to work quick, but
> > it gives no general structure to the work.I guess we should have people
> > specialising in structuring voices for better readability.
>
> I don't think specialists are the answer here; just like for
> verifiability, this is too big a task to be feasible for a small group
> of people, since just about every article could use a better
> "structure". What is needed is a better general awareness, and perhaps
> tools. For example, if the edit window is a part of the problem, then
> why not have the window auto-resize to fit the screen, instead of a
> fixed width and height? Or perhaps we could bring it to people's
> attention that the size of the edit box is customizable? &etc.

Better general awareness and a focus on rewriting to improve flow and
consistent tone would be a darn good start.  But I agree that the
tools don't help right now.

I would second the auto-resize edit window screen.  I flip up and down
to the preview all the time, but the end result of the current tools
is that it encourages a lot of small edits rather than a good, overall
review and well-visualized update throughout.

-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com