[WikiEN-l] Re: Print edition: unevenness of coverage

[Ray Saintonge]

Timwi wrote:

> Daniel P.B.Smith wrote:
>
>> A weak point of Wikipedia is that people write about what they are 
>> interested in, so given several topics of apparently comparable 
>> importance, the length, depth, and quality of the articles may differ 
>> widely.
>
> This is true. This is called "Systematic bias":
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Replies_to_common_objections#Systematic_bias 
>
>
>> This largely escapes notice in the web edition, but will become much 
>> more apparent in a print edition.
>
> Is that really so bad, though? I'm sure most people will understand. :)

To get the language right, it is a "systemic" bias rather than a 
"systematic" one.  "Systematic" would imply a wilfull application of 
bias in an organized way.  No Wikipedially aware person is suggesting that.

The quality of articles is extremely variable.  Many articles are 
clearly incomplete, and I blame myself for that as much as anybody else. 
 In the electronic medium we can afford to leave something undone, and 
leave it for someone else to complete, or maybe come back to finish it 
next year.  If you do that in a print edition it will magnify the 
amateurishness of the effort.  We are all here as amateurs, but we also 
all want the print edition to be a source of pride in several different 
ways.

Using the "Medicine" topic to illustrate this was very good.  We would 
do irreperable harm to the credibility of Wikipedia if we rushed into 
the creation of medical specialty articles just for the sake of making 
sure that we had something on them.

We can't expect the outsider who has just picked up a copy of the print 
edition to understand what has led to the article selection.  From his 
perspective, it's not his problem.

Ec