User talk:Matt Britt/Don't just do whatever

Re: "May I Quote You"

Of course you can. What do I fall under... what not to write? ;) Thank you for asking permission first, even though I'm sure I never would have found out anyway. Dan 21:47, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Well done!

Good essay; excellent points of contention throughout. Minfo 02:17, 16 October 2006 (UTC)

Re: Essay

(The following is copied from User talk:Matt Britt)

I read the essay, it is certainly true that a few experts in a field can contribute a great deal to an article. However, I am concerned by sample bias in just using FAs. Major re-drafting is usually part of the qualification process. For example in Enzyme, about 200 edits were necessary in response to reviewer comments, so the person or small group who nominates and follows the nomination comments is going to dominate the recent edit history.

A different point to make is when sharply divergent views are involved, this can produce an article which is a mass of constantly-contested detail of no real use to the casual reader. This can be avoided, again if a few expert editors can co-operate and produce a consensus. Homeopathy is an example of this I have worked on and my interactions with editors such as Peter morrell have shown me that this Wiki system can work well if people with expertise are willing to work together.

A provocative essay in all, needs a wider readership. TimVickers 21:13, 11 September 2006 (UTC)

Yes

This is an excellent essay, and succeeds in articulating what I've been thinking about for some time with regard to Aaronsw's thought provoking Who Writes Wikipedia findings. Wikipedia content as a whole is written by a massive distributed group, but good Wikipedia content is written by a much smaller core--a core that includes all too few of our regular editors. Given that quality, not quantity, is our current focus, we should be thinking hard about what we can do to increase the proportion of regular editors who contribute this sort of material. If you don't mind, I may bring this up in a few places to call attention to it. --Robth^Talk 19:02, 4 December 2006 (UTC)

Some Random Thoughts...

If I've followed your argument correctly, you think Wikipedia would be improved by increasing participation in programs like AiD. But isn't it possible that even official encouragement would fail?

The vast majority of Wikipedians don't have the skill to write a featured article. Furthermore, those that do are already working on articles that interest them; while WikiPrograms organizes these people, I think that intelligent Wikipedians interested in similar topics would come together naturally. While offically encouraging article improvement might further interest those people capable of putting together a featured article, it would only increase the speed of the production of FA-quality articles by a small amount.

I think the truth of the matter is that there simply aren't enough people capable of writing really great articles. Encyclopedias produced commercially have a huge advantage, as they pay capable writers and fact-checkers, and aren't encumbered by a panoply of angry internet users out for their POV. Wikipedia is at a huge disadvantage here. The idea that FA-status articles are produced by one or two people is quite natural. The saying "too many cooks spoil the broth" applies well here - one or two knowledgable people produce excellent articles, while collabrative efforts like AiD do not.

In any case, I think this problem isn't much of one. While many articles aren't written with ideal precision or style, they provide useful information. More importantly, articles link to outside information. Encyclopedias, including Wikipedia, are never better than summaries. Wikipedia, in fact, is already better than printed encyclopedias. The cross-referenced information is provided for immediate further research. And while the "Do Whatever" approach to article creation rarely results in great articles, it often results in pretty good ones.

I guess what my meandering thoughts really come down to is that I don't see a problem. The idyllic "real encyclopedia"-quality Wikipedia is impossible, and any changes won't result in that ideal being reached. Featured articles are really only stylistically better than the majority of other articles.

Given all of that, what you've said is all true. I hope I've been thought-provoking, or at least amusing. Your thoughts are extremely valid, and I hope more people read it. I agree with you; I'm just not sure that it's so much of a problem that it hurts Wikipedia.

In any case, have a nice day. Archaeo 15:04, 7 January 2007 (UTC)

Random observation

Isn't this situation of mediocrity being the steady state for Wikipedia articles just like Free software in general? As the truism goes, most Free software was written to scratch an itch of the author - of the 16000 or whatever programs that make it all the way to being packaged (ex. by Debian), how many of them can be said to have been polished to the software equivalent of an FA? Not all that many - a few thousand at best. And software has commonly been observed to be a process much more conducive because of its greater "objective" nature, I guess. (I know I've seen this criticism of Wikipedia in at leas the Register.) So we really shouldn't be surprised - articles are written to satisfy an editor's itch, not to create the definitive and final encyclopedic article on the subject. Remember, worse is better. --Gwern (contribs) 05:46 9 January 2007 (GMT)

It is all about information

Wikipedia is not for me and probably not for any common person to have all articles be of FA quality. It is about the information that is offered to the reader. I have begun to use Wikipedia rather than Google for many of my needs for information on various topics. A mediocre article is enough for a reader to satisfy his needs on the topic.

I can sense a bitterness in your words. I don't think you should be bitter or feel detest about the wikiprocess not creating articles of FA quality. The amount of information is what really matters for the popularity of Wikipedia and the possibility to add information makes Wikipedia what Wikipedia is. Featured Articles may be a good but are by no means the pride of Wikipedia. It fulfils the pride of some Wikipedians but for the rest of us, it is nothing special. Lord Metroid 22:41, 5 February 2007 (UTC)

A valid point, and the amount of stock one places in the FA process is entirely up to one's own point of view. Personally, I don't think it's worth beans these days, but I don't think that means that we shouldn't have a more systematic method of producing top-quality articles on high relevance topics. That's essentially the point of all of this; I don't see how Wikipedia is more useful than Google without some method for producing quality articles. Otherwise we're just relying on chaos and might as well put our stock in search engines. Thanks for your comments. -- mattb @ 2007-02-06T06:26Z