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Who Writes Wikipedia?

aaronsw.com

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Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#11

Post by mseebach »

aaronsw wrote: post #9
mseebach wrote: post #6

So, in the article it's claimed that Wales wanted to do a study using this method, and (implied) if appropriate, revise his conclusion. This is four years ago, anyone knows if that happened? Edited to add: One thing that has been annoying me a little, is when articles, regardless of their quality, are deleted because they lack notoriety. If these deletes adhere to the conclusions in this article (written by an outsid…

Wales admitted he was wrong to me through a mutual friend. I don't think he ever publicly recanted, though.

That is rather disturbing. Well, as PG says, there's still room to do to Wikipedia what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#13

Post by barrkel »

mseebach wrote: post #11
aaronsw wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wales admitted he was wrong to me through a mutual friend. I don't think he ever publicly recanted, though.

That is rather disturbing. Well, as PG says, there's still room to do to Wikipedia what Wikipedia did to Encyclopedia Britannica.

I don't find it disturbing. I think it's very much in Wales' character; starting out in soft porn, co-founding Wikipedia, and then passing himself off as founder, rather than co-founder. Every time I see his face at the top of a Wikipedia page, it sickens me, and similarly every time I see him described as "founder". Thus, the Wikipedia banner sickens me twice.

AdBlockPlus element hiding rule: wikipedia.org###siteNotice

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#14

Post by gwern »

mseebach wrote: post #6

So, in the article it's claimed that Wales wanted to do a study using this method, and (implied) if appropriate, revise his conclusion. This is four years ago, anyone knows if that happened? Edited to add: One thing that has been annoying me a little, is when articles, regardless of their quality, are deleted because they lack notoriety. If these deletes adhere to the conclusions in this article (written by an outsid…

Of course he didn't.

Do you remember when anonymous page creation was disabled after Seigenthaler? The Foundation promised us a study of the effects.

Years later: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Wikipedia_Signpost/20...

They never bothered.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#15

Post by vrruiz »

Felipe Ortega wrote a Ph.D. thesis devoted to this topic. "Wikipedia: A Quantiative Analysis", available at http://libresoft.es/Members/jfelipe/phd-thesis His conclusions were featured on a Washington Post article, "Volunteers Log Off as Wikipedia Ages", discussed here http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10403467-93.html and here http://news.slashdot.org/story/09/11/25/160236/Contributors-...

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#17

Post by sliverstorm »

xentronium wrote: post #4

As a moderator of a wiki-project, I can confirm Aaron Swartz's results. After we had gained enough popularity, most of the articles were written by outsiders and core community was there only to maintain -- categorize, wikify, create interlinks here and there, delete garbage and, last but not least, have flamewars in the discussion pages.

It's only logical- the people best suited to write articles are people who are well-versed in the subject, and the core community can't possibly contain experts on every subject.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#18

Post by sidek »

brianmckenzie wrote: post #12

Out of curiosity, how many HNers write on Wikipedia? I do it every so once in awhile, but only only on a few topics I'm intimately familiar with, or to fix obvious vandalism.

When I was sick over a summer, I wrote a lot. Not so anymore.

Re: Who Writes Wikipedia?

#19

Post by Alex3917 »

aaronsw wrote: post #9
mseebach wrote: post #6

So, in the article it's claimed that Wales wanted to do a study using this method, and (implied) if appropriate, revise his conclusion. This is four years ago, anyone knows if that happened? Edited to add: One thing that has been annoying me a little, is when articles, regardless of their quality, are deleted because they lack notoriety. If these deletes adhere to the conclusions in this article (written by an outsid…

Wales admitted he was wrong to me through a mutual friend. I don't think he ever publicly recanted, though.

For what it's worth, here is a thread I started on the Wikipedia mailing list in May 2005, which I believe was the first public debate about this:

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111502457428025

There are a ton of interesting posts from Jimbo, SJ, et al. Here are a couple of key comments by Jimbo about where his beliefs came from:

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111503845405275&w=...

http://marc.info/?l=wikipedia-l&m=111521774525655&w=...

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