The Limitations of Editing by Committee

The obvious quality control problem of maintaining a community-edited site like Wikipedia is getting some attention.  Andrew Orlowski claims the well-respected online encyclopedia is hopelessly in need of rethinking and reworking. And Jim Horton laments the inevitability of uneven quality within a structure that refuses to establish hierarchical editors.

I've certainly seen some definitions that were flawed, but I still find Wikipedia easy to use and easy to link to.

And I'm not the only one. Steve Rubel notes (thanks to John Pederson for the link) that Wikipedia is kicking the New York Times' ass in online traffic.

It may not be perfect, but it's good enough for a lot of people.

Comments

[Thomas Hawk]

I'm not sure I'd put much credibility in what Andrew Orlowski has to say:

http://thomashawk.com/2005/11/andrew-orlowski-and-register-bad.html

[Eric Eggertson]

Thanks for the link, Thomas. I'd already seen Orlowski in action with someone else, so I was consuming a lot of salt.