Matthew Brown wrote:
Wikipedia decided to take the road of not controlling
growth some time
ago, and I think overall it has worked out well. I think we cope with
the mass of content well enough.
Absolutely. One of the featres of a statistical system is that you can
never predict where the next growth spurt will happen, but there is
still an overall predictability.
I see it as concentric circles, like a target; the
center is the
high-quality articles, and each ring outward is progressively lower
quality. All these rings are expanding. The sum total of crap
articles is inexorably expanding, but so is the total of useful stubs,
the patchy but promising, the serviceable but short, and even the
excellent ones.
I prefer a fractal geometry. A circular growth pattern is too smoothly
predictable.It would also impose expectations on areas which are not
growing as expected. We still have major areas that are only scantly
covered.
Over time, the number of serviceable encyclopedia
articles has
steadily increased, and I see no signs of that stopping. The
percentage of articles that are high-quality may not go up, but the
quantity and coverage of those articles is constantly increasing.
The good ones will remain in proportion ... just like the bad ones.
Ec