I don't have a specific reference for you, just some comments. :) I think perhaps your original claim is too strong--on both counts. Including the word "can" as you did in your reply is important. Wikis CAN lead to high-quality content. And CAN lead to active communities. (Clearly there are examples of active communities and examples of wikis that never get used much.) I am not convinced that the technology itself leads to high-quality articles in Wikipedia, and I don't think that the Nature article supports that claim in any way. One could hypothesize about characteristics of wiki that help support the goal of producing high-quality articles and try to empirically verify the claim, but to my knowledge no one has done so in any systematic fashion.
On 8/29/07, Desilets, Alain <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Alain Désilets wrote: > > > I need a good solid reference to substantiate the following > > claim: > > > > "Besides leading to high quality content, wikis have been > > shown to be good tools > > for fostering the emergence of active communities" > > > > Does anyone know of a good research paper that looks > > specifically at this kind of > > impact of wikis? > > Brian replied: > > > I think the first part of your claim needs to be substantiated first! > > Almost all of the > > content on the English Wikipedia, for example, is of low quality. > > > > > > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Version_1.0_Editorial_Team/Index > > I already have a solid reference to substantiate the fact that Wikipedia has > quality content, i.e. the Nature Magazne study of 2005: > > http://www.nature.com/news/2005/051212/full/438900a.html > > This study found that the quality of Wikipedia content was comparable to that > of Britannica (on a sample of 42 pages in various scientific domains). > > The page you quote above does not constitute a scientific assessment of the > quality of WikiPedia pages. For one thing, it's not a random sample. These > are pages that people on the editorial board selected for review, and it > could be that they naturally focused on pages that were a-priori more likely > to present quality issues. Second, it does not compare the quality of > wikipedia pages to the quality of corresponding pages on more traditional > resources. > > The Nature study on the other hand was scientifically sound on both of those > points. It did a random sample of pages on a broad range of scientific > topics. And it compared the quality of those pages to comparable pages on > Brittanica. > > The Nature study is also consistent with my personal experience (and that of > most people I talk to) as a user of Wikipedia. In other words, whenever I go > to a Wikipedia page on a topic that I know well, I find it to be good quality > and accurate. > > So... Until someone shows me a scientifically sound demonstration that > Wikipedia pages are of significantly lower quality than other more > traditional resources, I will continue claiming that wikis like Wikipedia can > lead to quality content. > > > ---- > Alain Désilets, National Research Council of Canada > Chair, WikiSym 2007 > > 2007 International Symposium on Wikis > Wikis at Work in the World: > Open, Organic, Participatory Media for the 21st Century > > http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/ > > > > > _______________________________________________ > Wiki-research-l mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l > _______________________________________________ Wiki-research-l mailing list [email protected] http://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wiki-research-l
