Newbies or Better information?

I can't address your question from an information technology point of view, that's out of my field of expertise. I can, however approach it from a biological point of views. What has happened with WP over the course of these years is akin to artificial selection, i.e. a breeding program. Let's imagine we are talking about potatoes here. What you have in WP is an advanced cultivar or a potato that is resistant to certain diseases (e.g. vandalism), has a high yield (editors with high counts of contributions) and needs less resources (experienced users don't need other users to explain them how everything works). On the other hand, new users are like landraces, i.e. cultivars that were developed by ancestral populations during the domestication of the wild relatives of cultivated potatoes. They don't have any of the desirable characteristics of the advanced cultivar, but it has a much higher biodiversity. And that's the reason why breeders in general are perpetually trying to cross their advanced cultivars with land races and even wild species related to the cultivated one. Because biodiversity is the key to overcome the challenge of a changing environment. Going back to WP, and making the metaphor explicit, what you're missing by closing doors to new editors is knowledge. If you keep experienced editors because they know how to edit, you're keeping out new editors that may have a better knowledge of the topics needed to write good articles. Even if we would assume that current experienced users have all the knowledge needed for the articles in WP, in time that will change. Either because new articles will require new expertise or because knowledge may change (as it rapidly does in scientific fields these days) WP will need new people to stay current. And on that note, may I also add that I feel currently WP values editing savvy over expertise in a topic. Asinthior 13:57, 17 May 2011 (UTC)