3 ms·

Of course if you're comparing to a strawman where they pay everyone that'd be a bad idea that I wouldn't approve either. Nothing Wikipedia currently does with

Of course if you're comparing to a strawman where they pay everyone that'd be a bad idea that I wouldn't approve either. Nothing Wikipedia currently does with its money justifies the sums they are getting. If they decided to use that money to generate content, I'd imagine that would work more like normal encyclopedias instead of volunteer based. Where they would seek out actual experts, and only in scientific fields and other areas where there is a knowledge gap rather than opinions. You know, like companies can pay engineers to work on open source projects. Doesn't stop volunteers from volunteering. But you obviously don't throw away money at everyone, you pay for specific work. Honestly, only the math / scientific parts of Wikipedia are good, there's opinionated garbage in controversial areas. And it's better than books usually because it's easier to click and jump between definitions than the usual book or encyclopedia. If someone compressed all math and physics books into the Wikipedia format with links, I'd barely use Wikipedia again.

renewiltord 3y ago
I think the people who want "actual experts" should go read encyclopedias built by actual experts. That user segment need not be targeted by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is what it is because of volunteer editors like me. It is not feasible to convert it to be majority "expert" so if it attempted to do so, the cost would be exorbitant and the users who prefer "expert-written work" will not be satisfied until it is complete since the presence of volunteer work will be considered by them a bad thing. Those users will be concerned that they do not know which articles are "expert"-written and WP will lose volunteers who get upset that they can't correct "expert" works. It's best that Wikipedia not attempt to be a thing it is not. Encyclopedia Britannica does exist. There is no reason that Wikipedia needs to enter that space.
- jamilton 3y ago
  I see no reason why expert-written articles would have to be locked from further edits, or marked as expert-written. They could be subject to the same formal standards as the rest of Wikipedia, but with guarantee that those standards are applied. There are already paid Wikipedia editors, they tend to be working for PR firms. A non-profit doing the same thing for altruistic purposes sounds feasible and good to me, it wouldn't even need to necessarily be part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
  - renewiltord 3y ago
    Because if they are not marked or restricted then I believe they won't appeal to users who want expert articles. Like in the reaction to LLMs we know that people who want high certainty in their articles also want to know when they're in their high certainty environment and when they're not. Mixing the two will cause many of them to be upset. Permitting volunteers to edit will cause many of them to be upset, especially if there is one with an error. It's better this way with a clear separation of wiki and expert.
    - pessimizer 3y ago
      > Because if they are not marked or restricted then I believe they won't appeal to users who want expert articles. I believe they will, because the quality will be higher. They shouldn't employ experts as a marketing campaign, they should employ experts as a way to keep interesting entries from devolving into trash heaps. I'd honestly prefer those experts to be research librarians and experts on parliamentary procedure or statistics, rather than subject matter. Instead all editorial decisions are made through trials adjudicated by a few people who happened to walk by, and other people paid to be there by private organizations and/or governments. A higher-quality Wikipedia needs defenses against paid and deeply-invested mobs.
      - renewiltord 3y ago
        One way to bootstrap this approach is to mirror Wikipedia and add on expert articles. That would demonstrate the value of the expert articles. I suspect this value is low. If it were sufficiently high, this Expert Wikipedia would rapidly come to dominate. I think the Expert Wikipedia would be a bad use of resources because most people do not desire this and because experts will not deliver better articles in general.
        manmal 3y ago
        That’s an impossible experiment because a mirror would never get the same network effects, search engine treatment, and cultural integration Wikipedia has accumulated.
- machina_ex_deus 3y ago
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renewiltord 3y ago

I think the people who want "actual experts" should go read encyclopedias built by actual experts. That user segment need not be targeted by Wikipedia. Wikipedia is what it is because of volunteer editors like me. It is not feasible to convert it to be majority "expert" so if it attempted to do so, the cost would be exorbitant and the users who prefer "expert-written work" will not be satisfied until it is complete since the presence of volunteer work will be considered by them a bad thing. Those users will be concerned that they do not know which articles are "expert"-written and WP will lose volunteers who get upset that they can't correct "expert" works. It's best that Wikipedia not attempt to be a thing it is not. Encyclopedia Britannica does exist. There is no reason that Wikipedia needs to enter that space.

jamilton 3y ago
I see no reason why expert-written articles would have to be locked from further edits, or marked as expert-written. They could be subject to the same formal standards as the rest of Wikipedia, but with guarantee that those standards are applied. There are already paid Wikipedia editors, they tend to be working for PR firms. A non-profit doing the same thing for altruistic purposes sounds feasible and good to me, it wouldn't even need to necessarily be part of the Wikimedia Foundation.
- renewiltord 3y ago
  Because if they are not marked or restricted then I believe they won't appeal to users who want expert articles. Like in the reaction to LLMs we know that people who want high certainty in their articles also want to know when they're in their high certainty environment and when they're not. Mixing the two will cause many of them to be upset. Permitting volunteers to edit will cause many of them to be upset, especially if there is one with an error. It's better this way with a clear separation of wiki and expert.
  - pessimizer 3y ago
    > Because if they are not marked or restricted then I believe they won't appeal to users who want expert articles. I believe they will, because the quality will be higher. They shouldn't employ experts as a marketing campaign, they should employ experts as a way to keep interesting entries from devolving into trash heaps. I'd honestly prefer those experts to be research librarians and experts on parliamentary procedure or statistics, rather than subject matter. Instead all editorial decisions are made through trials adjudicated by a few people who happened to walk by, and other people paid to be there by private organizations and/or governments. A higher-quality Wikipedia needs defenses against paid and deeply-invested mobs.
    - renewiltord 3y ago
      One way to bootstrap this approach is to mirror Wikipedia and add on expert articles. That would demonstrate the value of the expert articles. I suspect this value is low. If it were sufficiently high, this Expert Wikipedia would rapidly come to dominate. I think the Expert Wikipedia would be a bad use of resources because most people do not desire this and because experts will not deliver better articles in general.
      - manmal 3y ago
        That’s an impossible experiment because a mirror would never get the same network effects, search engine treatment, and cultural integration Wikipedia has accumulated.
machina_ex_deus 3y ago
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