In a recent post to a Wikipedia mailing list, Wikipedia co-founder Jimmy Wales described Nick Carr’s post on “The amorality of Web 2.0″ (which I, along with much of the blogosphere previously linked to) as “a valid criticism” and agreed that “the two examples [Carr] puts forward are, quite frankly, a horrific embarassment” and “nearly unreadable crap”.
This sparked several uncharacteristicly self-critical responses from Wikipedians:
Although the raw numbers [of editors] are large, the number of articles is even larger, and so there are not enough editors to go around. […] Where are all the subject-matter experts?
We’d like to think that it’s inevitable we’ll asymptotically approach high quality, as Tony defended with [[Eventualism]]. But I think it’s too simplistc.
In my view, wikipedia has to undergo a paradigm change if it really wants to succeed in creating a good encyclopedia. […] We shouldn’t give up the principle of open editing but we should make clear now from the beginning that we seek good writers and knowledgeable people, not anyone. Yes, anyone can edit an article. But not anyone should edit any article.
If Robert Henry [sic] is right (and judging by a number of fine articles now laying in ruins I suspect he is), then WP, should it desire to get finer control on article quality, needs to modify its “completely open” model a little bit.
[Via Andrew Orlowski at the Register]