+1 for question. Hope it will stimulate us to contribute more, it would be great. I feel great respect to those who contribute to Wikipedia. My experience about Wikipedia and its quality is highly positive, probably one of the reasons, is that many many articles are written by one of the Fields Medalists.

Personally I have contributed some material to Wikipedia, the main reason that my contribution is not so big - is lack of time. I feel somewhat ashamed about it, and some excuse which I see for myself - is that I am currently in industry and cannot enjoy academic freedom.

I would also be second on Jérémy Blanc's words: "One difference between MO and wikipedia is that here you get very quickly answers or remarks on what you have written, and it is then very much more attractive..." Wikipedia pages have view-counters, which somehow indicates how useful is what you have done, but it is not clear what exactly is counted ? I guess some views come from robots or other automatic engines. The page about Capelli identity (which is mostly written by me) is visited about 5 times per day according to http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Capelli%27s_identity Are there really so many people who know what is it ? :))) Although, it is not very important for me, but just having more feedback would be nicer.

Let me also mention that when I was in academia, I did not see big use of Wikipedia for me - when you are deep in one field Wikipedia cannot help you. But when I switched into industry and I often got a new task about things which I know nothing about - then Wikipedia became extremely useful. Moreover I see that for hundreds of engineers Wikipedia is main window to mathematical knowledge.

I am probably not the only person who finds that many math textbooks are quite boring Why do so many textbooks have so much technical detail and so little enlightenment?. In my experience Wikipedia is an exception. So currently my feeling is that If I need to understand some new topic or an idea - I will look to Wikipedia, if it is described there - then it is possible to learn the subj. If something is missing on Wikipedia - no chance to understand an idea in a reasonable amount of time.

+1 for question. Hope it will stimulate us to contribute more, it would be great. I feel great respect to those who contribute to Wikipedia. My experience about Wikipedia and its quality is highly positive, probably one of the reasons, is that many many articles are written by one of the Fields Medalists.

Personally I have contributed some material to Wikipedia, the main reason that my contribution is not so big - is lack of time. I feel somewhat ashamed about it, and some excuse which I see for myself - is that I am currently in industry and cannot enjoy academic freedom.

I would also be second on Jérémy Blanc's words: "One difference between MO and wikipedia is that here you get very quickly answers or remarks on what you have written, and it is then very much more attractive..." Wikipedia pages have view-counters, which somehow indicates how useful is what you have done, but it is not clear what exactly is counted ? I guess some views come from robots or other automatic engines. The page about Capelli identity (which is mostly written by me) is visited about 5 times per day according to http://stats.grok.se/en/latest/Capelli%27s_identity Are there really so many people who know what is it ? :))) Although, it is not very important for me, but just having more feedback would be nicer.

Let me also mention that when I was in academia, I did not see big use of Wikipedia for me - when you are deep in one field Wikipedia cannot help you. But when I switched into industry and I often got a new task about things which I know nothing about - then Wikipedia became extremely useful. Moreover I see that for hundreds of engineers Wikipedia is main window to mathematical knowledge.

I am probably not the only person who finds that many math textbooks are quite boring Why do so many textbooks have so much technical detail and so little enlightenment?. In my experience Wikipedia is an exception. So currently my feeling is that If I need to understand some new topic or an idea - I will look to Wikipedia, if it is described there - then it is possible to learn the subj. If something is missing on Wikipedia - no chance to understand an idea in a reasonable amount of time.