4 ms·

Which sponsors does Wikipedia have?

• jerf 4y ago
  "Sponsor" may not be the right word, but Wikipedia by its nature ends up privileging the most motivated. Sadly, "the most motivated" are not always the most reliable. Sometimes they are! Lots o' love to the That Guy who is obsessed with the 14th century French poetry, and writes an entry that the most detail-oriented academic could hardly hope for. But in general... it's not a good bet.
  • bawolff 4y ago
    This is such a weird criticism. Before wikipedia you had academics writing things like this. You really think the average wikipedian is more "motivated" then the average academic with a PhD who spent their life studying some topic?
    • jerf 4y ago
      Average, who can say. Modal, by number of contributions/edits, they absolutely are more motivated than a PhD. They may have spent their life studying a topic but Wikipedia isn't where they're generally going to put it.
      • bawolff 4y ago
        If your counting by number of edits that's basically a tautology: People who edit wikipedia make more edits than people who don't edit Wikipedia. Well no shit. If you want to do an apples to apples comparison, compare how many hours people edit wikipedia vs how many hours PhD candidates spend writing their dissertation. i think on average traditional accademia rewards obsessiveness much more than wikipedia does.