Random thoughts about Wikipedia
These are some of my random thoughts about Wikipedia.
[edit] In general
I regard Wikipedia as a revolution in the field of knowledge. What is more amazing than everything else is its structure and (self-)organization. As The Economist has underscored, Wikipedia is quite the opposite of a chaotic free Encyclopedia, where everybody does whatever he wants:
- There is a strict hierarchical structure: Jimbo Wales, the Board of Trustees, the administrators, the bureaucrats and the editors. Thereby, we have a regular chain of command, according to the basic rules of management.
- The articles are also evaluated and hierarchically categorized: Featured articles, A-Class articles, Good articles, B-Class articles, Start articles and stubs. The articles are also evaluated by the Version 0.5 of Wikipedia.
- Most importantly, many Wikiprojects are organized and function. They co-ordinate and initiate various plans, while supervising and evaluating a series of articles.
Sometimes this hierarchical collaborative work results in outstanding articles, which are far better than those of Britannica. Of course, this is not always the case, but the fact that such articles exist and multiply is amazing.
[edit] Collaboration among the Greek Wikipedians
The Greek Wikipedians are not numerous, but they are shrewd, creative and passionate. The main problem rests in the lack of the adequate level of co-operation. I'll make myself clear:
In specific issues, such as the dispute about the articles concerning FYROM, the co-operation among the Greek Wikipedians is very vivd and effective. Unfortunately, this is some kind of "random co-operation". Although the Wikiprojects blossom, until recently there was no Wikiproject with a clear Greek interest. Nobody had undertaken such an initiative and, when a proposition is articulated, nobody responds.
Some time ago I had left a message in the Greek Wikipedians' notice board proposing the creation of a WikiProject Greek law based on the WikiProject Canadian law. Nobody was interested.
I think we must learn to co-operate on a most regular basis. I'm also afraid that I'm the only Greek Wikipedian who is interested in articles concerning the Greek law. I'm finally afraid that very few of us, the Greek Wikipedians, are interested in topics concerning ancient Greece.
The creation of the Wikipedia:WikiProject History of Greece (later merged into the current Wikiproject Greece was a positive development. The participation was and remains quite impressive, our achievements are great, but I long for a more energetic presence of the members.
I randomly watch the pages with the FA candidatures. Nonetheless, having already nominated six FA articles, I have some thoughts about the way this procedure works:
- I believe that the evaluators of the article should avoid negativism and try to motivate the nominators. Thereby, I believe that comments are often more effective than objections. My experience teaches that a comment is often a better incentive than an objection for the improvement of a FAC.
- The nominators of FAC are sometimes totally unprepared for the task they've undertaken. They proceed their nomination without having settled all the stylistic details and quite often without being ready to respond to the suggestions of the evaluators.
Lately, I spend more time in FAR. I think its role is very important. Some old FAs do not comply with the current FA criteria and hence they should be removed. It is not fair these articles to keep the FA status, when nowadays the nominators strive to citate their articles and are obliged to comply with the current more stringent FA criteria.
The problem is that the procedure in FAR is too slow and, thereby, there are still many articles, which keep the FA status, although they do not deserve it. It is characteristic that the page faces a backlog and more volunteers are needed. Personally, I believe that FAR is more important that FAC and I contribute as much as I can.
I think the most important thing when writing an article is prose. I fully agree with Robth who underscores that "one of the weaknesses of a collaboratively written article is that transitions from section to section are often awkward, and the order of presentation can become illogical as people add information at varying points. When I'm writing, I try to make articles tell a story, with clear, logical reasons for why each section comes where it does". The article flow is really of huge importance.
The problem is I'm not a native-English speaker. Thereby, I'm doing my best, but, in order to achieve the desirable level of article flow, I often need the support of native-English speakers. I try to achieve however the best correlation between the sections of an article, endeavoring to adopt an elegant style of prose.
