[WikiEN-l] Re: Quality

Mon Oct 24 18:34:12 UTC 2005

>>From: "Poor, Edmund W" <Edmund.W.Poor at abc.com>

>>I have only skimmed the Guardian article, but it seems fair and
>>balanced. I bet the "grades" rating the reviewed articles on a scale
>>from 1 to 10 are realistic indicators of quality.

I agree.

>>We don't pay enough attention to quality. 

This is what bothers me most about Wikipedia. 

Low-quality articles are tolerated on the assumption that every low-quality 
article is the nucleus around which a pearl will coalesce. 

Unfortunately, one of the things that seems to be scaling, possibly 
increasing, is the ratio between the rate at which irritating grains of 
pollutant are introduced and the rate at which nacre is being deposited.

The de facto situation here seems to be that we would _rather_ have more 
article than better articles.

I thought the Guardian article was very fair and accurate. And speaks quite 
well of Wikipedia. We have consciously chosen to produce an encyclopedia in 
which most articles are "almost good enough."

But if we want them to be better, we have got to do something to direct more 
nacre around fewer nuclei.

Quality is not one of the "five pillars of Wikipedia." And only a certain 
level of quality results from the natural operation of the Wiki process.

If we want Wikipedia to be not just a "free encyclopedia," but a "high-
quality free encyclopedia," something needs to change.