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# Nupedia/Talk

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Nupedia is a failure. Since Jan 2001, 10 (ten) new articles appeared, 9 of them being `brief versions', and one `medium-lenght'.

Policy says that you have to be PhD? to contribute, but maybe, as an exception, they'll allow you to write even though you aren't PhD?. How many contributors do they expect ?

We should forget about Nupedia and add some quality assurance features to Wikipedia. It's much better to have 50k good articles and 50k reasonable-quality ones instead of 1k excelent articles.

It's just another [Cathedral vs. Bazaar]? issue.

                                   -- Taw

The reason Nupedia is having trouble right now is that we've had trouble convincing academics that it is indeed a bona fide cathedral. If we were to convince them of that--which I think we will, eventually--you'll see just how wrong you really are (that Nupedia is a failure).

I am 100% opposed to adding "quality assurance features" to Wikipedia that involve making it harder for people to edit articles. Wikipedia's freedom is its quality assurance. --LMS

I agree that calling Nupedia a "failure" at this point in the game is incredibly short-sighted. It's actually quite remarkable what it has already accomplished, and it gives every indication that it will accomplish much more. The existence of Wikipedia and the Chalkboard will help a lot; I think one more thing that would help a lot is to drop the focus on short articles--it's much easier for authors to produce longer articles, and they will get more reward out of doing so. Shortening them can (and should) be done by proficient editors with expert consultation, not by the authors themselves. --LDC

one thing to check when counting nupedia articles is the "in progress" bin - I think there were more than 50 in there when I counted the other day. Speed-to-completion is an issue, but it looks like it's moving rather than standing still --MichaelTinkler

Maybe Chalkboard will change things, but if Nupedia were going to continue to work the way it's working now, it would fail. Examples of QA features that can be added now to wiki:

- Button mail me all changes to this article
- Make adding References more popular than it is now.

Wikipedia freedom is the most important QA, but it needs some help to scale up. Most important problem now is that if someone screws existing article on niche subject, chances are high that nobody will even notice for a long time. --Taw

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Last edited August 16, 2001 4:56 pm (diff)
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