A rating system like you describe is very interesting and might be a good addition. I assume that you mean every visitor should have the option to rate a page. Have you discussed these suggestions at Wikipedia? I haven't gotten involved much there yet, but I imagine others have noticed and discussed these problems already.
Yes, that's what I mean. Unfortunately, I have not gotten involved enough even to know where such a thing could be suggested... it seems like there is a very hard-core core group and I just haven't been willing to spend the time and energy to get into it at that level. I have to conclude that the people who do it like it the way that it is, or it would have been changed by now, but what do I know?
Perhaps part of the issue is that discussion systems and rating systems inevitably give the developer or designer a lot of power and are therefore seen as undemocratic. I don't know what the objections are, but as you imply, I can't be the first person to have thought of these things.
I don't think there is any distinction between building an on-line encyclopedia that anyone can edit it and managing it. Wikipedians have necessarily been doing both tasks simultaneously from the beginning, though as it gets bigger and more popular, the management becomes more difficult. It's still being built just as much as it is being managed. If it's more difficult to manage and build now than it was a soon after it started, I think that's partly because tools have not scaled to match the complexity of the project.
I agree. I was just referring to the "everything is a wikipage" philosophy.
