Comments on: All about the editor http://johnthomson.org/2007/12/09/all-about-the-editor/ Thoughts on the social impacts of communication policy and educational technology. Wed, 08 Jan 2014 18:21:46 +0000 hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=4.5.2 By: john http://johnthomson.org/2007/12/09/all-about-the-editor/comment-page-1/#comment-4929 Thu, 13 Dec 2007 05:22:18 +0000 http://johnthomson.org/blog/archives/217#comment-4929 Hey Doug,
Sorry to take so long to reply. For some reason, WordPress didn’t alert me to your comment.

Your point is well taken, because I think you’re right–in practice it’s probably the most interested people that are putting in the time on pet articles. Perhaps the angle I’m coming from is that community editing sometimes doesn’t make the best product (I’ll confess, I’ve soured on the process because of a few difficult experiences). It makes me wonder if anyone has subjectively looked at the typical “voice” of a Wikipeda article, if there is one. In the end, a compelling voice makes something more readable, or even in some cases, more organized.
…kind of a digression from what’s really important (accuracy), I’ll admit. :-[

]]> By: doug http://johnthomson.org/2007/12/09/all-about-the-editor/comment-page-1/#comment-4928 Tue, 11 Dec 2007 20:17:41 +0000 http://johnthomson.org/blog/archives/217#comment-4928 It is true that on Wikipedia, at any given time the editor is potentially everyone. In practice though, I think that over time, the real editors of any particular article are those that have the time and motivation to return to the article repeatedly. Reader’s need to know that articles evolve over time, that the current state of the article might note be the most accurate, and that the motivations that keep editors coming back to articles could be altruistic and genuine, or less so.

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