Comments on: Wikimania Day 1: Jimmy Wales http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2006/08/04/wikimania-day-1-jimmy-wales/ A librarian, writer and educator reflecting on the profession and the tools we use to serve our patrons Mon, 06 Feb 2012 09:11:50 +0000 hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.0.3 By: Richard http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/2006/08/04/wikimania-day-1-jimmy-wales/comment-page-1/#comment-93963 Richard Fri, 11 Aug 2006 18:38:15 +0000 http://meredith.wolfwater.com/wordpress/index.php/2006/08/04/wikimania-day-1-jimmy-wales/#comment-93963 "Wikipedia is strong in science, but if they’d compared literature and poetry, the Britannica would easily have come out on top. Humanities articles are not as well developed and this is a place we need to focus on. We’re not as good as Britannica… yet." This seems to map my gut feelings about technology uptake in general. The humanities lag behind the sciences in general, so I'm not surprised this is true of Wikipedia. Since this is a general community problem, what can Wikipedia do to encourage participation among humanities-minded folks, without resorting to Britannica-like incentives? “Wikipedia is strong in science, but if they’d compared literature and poetry, the Britannica would easily have come out on top. Humanities articles are not as well developed and this is a place we need to focus on. We’re not as good as Britannica… yet.”

This seems to map my gut feelings about technology uptake in general. The humanities lag behind the sciences in general, so I’m not surprised this is true of Wikipedia. Since this is a general community problem, what can Wikipedia do to encourage participation among humanities-minded folks, without resorting to Britannica-like incentives?

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