[WikiEN-l] Some more unscientific findings

Fri Dec 9 19:12:39 UTC 2005

Geoffrey Burling wrote:

> Now while some people will use this as proof that Wikipedia badly needs
> improvement and eoter rant that we need to work on our quality, or
> dismiss this finding as belaboring the obvious, a little math will show
> that if the 5% figure is correct then there ought to be at least 42,000
> articles that are Good in quality -- or better. That's not a bad
> statistic, especialy when one considers some proprietary encyclopedias
> don't have that many articles *in total*.

Wikipedia is not a finished product encyclopedia. It's the raw material
for one. It's good enough to be usable, and our popularity (#30 today,
#29 yesterday - we've broken the top 30!) shows there's an aching need
for something like Wikipedia, even if we don't fill it as well as we'd
like to.

> Let's stop making assumptions, and do some more math: more articles are
> listed & debated on AfD than on Peer review. It's hard not to conclude
> from that simple calculation that Wikipedians are more motivated to
> remove an article than to improve it. Small wonder, then, that so many
> people complain about the quality of the articles on Wikipedia: that's 
> what they look for -- the bad articles instead of the good.

Yes. I wish more AFD regulars would work on writing and improving stuff.
 (I know a lot do - Geogre, for instance, an ardent advocate of clearing
crap, very much has the runs on the board when it comes to producing new
stuff of high quality. I'm a fan.)

> I know this would be unenforceable, but wouldn't it be a good policy
> that before an editor nominates an article to AfD, they have to also
> nominate an article to Peer review? And that before an editor adds to
> the debate at AfD, they have to contribute to the debate at either Peer
> review or Featured articles candidates? Maybe that might make some
> people complain about those fora like some people complain about AfD
> now, but it just might help uncover more of those 42,000 unrecognized
> Good articles.

I heartily endorse this product and/or service!

(And if you have someone who's a good admin who is good at spotting crap
but a terrible writer, e.g. geni, who is dyslexic, they should be able
to find people to help them with editing their prose into shape. I'll
volunteer.)

- d.