Talk:Wikipedia

Article Checklist for "Wikipedia"

Workgroup category or categories	Computers Workgroup [Editors asked to check categories]
Article status	Developing article: beyond a stub, but incomplete
Underlinked article?	Yes
Basic cleanup done?	No
Checklist last edited by	John Stephenson 21:31, 16 May 2007 (CDT)

To learn how to fill out this checklist, please see CZ:The Article Checklist.

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How to handle our point of view?

Hope you don't mind my starting a talk page here. Thought it would be better to comment than directly edit. Given the institutional setting, it seems to me that we should bend over backwards to be/sound balanced and neutral. That said, I would point out that many sentences are structured like: "It seems good but...." Left-handed compliments etc. For example, quoting from the current draft:

• Wikipedia allows anyone to edit, unless...
• While contributors are encouraged to create accounts at Wikipedia, [BUT] people may edit anonymously.
• ... history for every Wikipedia page is available, [BUT] exceeding
• Wikipedia grew exponentially in its first 4 to 5 years, thougharticle growth slowed...
• While the English Wikipedia boasts well over one million articles, [BUT] many articles are on relatively trivial ...

I recommend giving them a nice, clean description up front, composed of unqualified (true) statements. Then a separate section with criticisms. Make the criticisms crisp, not nitpicky, and cite credible outside (non-CZ) critics, and that's not hard to find! (I've got some links if you need them...) Overall, the upfront description should be longer and more thorough, the criticisms would be the most significant but not overwhelm the look of the entire article. You may not like Wikipedia, but it's one of the most successful computer ventures of the decade. David Hoffman 18:50, 11 May 2007 (CDT)