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RE: Wikipedia on XML

• From: "Michael Kay" <mike@saxonica.com>
• To: <Tim.Bray@Sun.COM>,"'XML Developers List'" <xml-dev@l...>
• Date: Wed, 29 Jul 2009 08:29:58 +0100

> I stumbled into Wikipedia's XML entry today and it's terrible.   
> Sprawling, badly-organized, full of inessentials including 
> some nonsense.

The closer you get to subjects that first-year undergraduates have heard
about, the more likely you are to find very poor quality articles in
Wikipedia: the main problem is editing by people who don't realise how
superficial their knowledge is. Another problem is structural decay of
articles due to accretion of facts that distract from the overall story
line. 

And yes, there's also the challenge of dealing with edits by people who want
to promote the benefits of some alternative language or technology. Often,
what they say has an element of truth; the problem is that it isn't
necessarily relevant to the purposes or intended readership of the article.
But it can also serve as a useful reminder that there are alternative points
of view: we spend a lot of time talking to friends in the same technical
community, and often ignore what people outside that community are saying.

Wish you luck!

Regards,

Michael Kay
http://www.saxonica.com/
http://twitter.com/michaelhkay 

• References:
  • Wikipedia on XML
    • From: Tim Bray <Tim.Bray@Sun.COM>