- "The only areas it fell down on were length (the second being three times as long) and [...] lacking a clear argument or unifying perspective about the subject, making it a little harder to isolate what the key issues for debate might be." (Reviewer 1 – academic)
In general, it appears that Wikipedia articles were distinguishable from other online encyclopaedias in the qualitative judgments with respect to the following characteristics if combined within a particular article: good coverage of topic, currency, quality of referencing, along with the less desirable qualities of redundancy and repetition. We would add to this also the non-appearance of a particular area of potential criticism – that of bias, as this did not appear to be an issue on more than a very few occasions in judgments made about Wikipedia articles.
Coverage of topic
- "The second article [Mawsoah] can be part of the first one [Wikipedia] [...] the first article is comprehensive while the second one is just an introduction, so we can use some information in the second article which is missing in the first one, like the addictors story to complete the first one." (Reviewer 3 – academic – Parkinson's)
In the same spirit, all three reviewers for the article on Memory felt that, despite "minor flaws" (Reviewer 2), the Wikipedia article was superior especially with respect to its coverage of the topic:
- "The first article [Wikipedia] is decent. It is reasonably concise, and covers most things that I would include – certainly it is not perfect, and there are things missing, but it is concise and well-written. By contrast the second article [Britannica] is very vague and makes minimal links to the actual original science behind the points [...] I actually think that it would be a little misleading to a novice, because the literature has developed so much in the last 10-15 years." (Reviewer 3 – doctoral student)
Currency
Comprehensive coverage tended to be taken to imply currency as well, and this was certainly an area where Wikipedia articles consistently scored higher than others in the qualitative judgements:
- "I think that the real strength of this article is that it gives people a good overview of what Attention actually is. It covers the historical background of the research area, but also more up to date perspectives. It is also very transparent about the overlap between attention and other related areas of study, such as Working Memory and Executive Processes [...]"
Indeed, this article earns particular high praise from this reviewer specifically because of its currency:
- "Everything in this article [Wikipedia] is stuff that I would have included had I written it myself. It is also very 'current' – all the stuff on disorders of attention in children is really very new [...] Everything that is stated as fact is pretty much accepted by the
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