Recent Changes is not the Wiki; it's just one window into it.
Monitoring Recent Changes is like watching how sausage is made.
If you don't like the quality of the articles and edits in Recent Changes, then don't look. Use the Starting Points or Road Maps to find solid, high-quality content that has been around for a while.
During flamewars, monitoring Recent Changes will give a particularly poor view of the wiki. During such times, it is better for most wikizens to spend their time reading and refactoring stable pages rather than trying to comment upon or "fix" the warriors' rapid-fire edits and counter-edits.
You might also use Find Page and Like Pages, or even click on the page title for Back Links.
Random Pages is a good spot check on the overall quality of this site.
However,
Although it is true that Recent Changes is not the Wiki, it remains a very important part of Wiki. It is one of our primary methods of quality control through Peer Review. See Role Of Recent Changes.
Or, to reword it: The miracle of self-repair is possible by the grace of Recent Changes and the Recent Changes Junkies who are around to take their shot of Wiki-ism.
What would happen if one month out of the year Ward disabled Recent Changes and Quick Changes? How would people use Wiki differently? Perhaps one of the dangers of reliance on Recent Changes and Quick Changes is that by emphasizing the relation of pages to those few pages, they de-emphasize the relation of those pages to other pages.
That would be interesting! Perhaps instead, Ward should just throw occasional Random Pages into Recent Changes (and Quick Changes), to remind us Recent Changes Junkies that they exist. -- Tom Anderson
That's what spammers are for!
Hmm. It's interesting to note that, as of 2010, I almost never hit an instance of Random Pages where I have not touched at least one page on the list. Hmph. Maybe that's just diarrhea of the keyboard cropping up, but I think it more likely that I've been involved in this Wiki for so long that the main points of interest have all flowed across my screens at one time or another.
I appreciate Recent Changes because there is new blood being injected into the C2 all the time. Cool new takes on old concepts crop up and force all of us to reconsider old, well-worn views on certain subject matter. Even the occasional bickering helps to clarify one's position on a matter that hasn't changed over the years.
Even allowing for some Unmentionable People on this Wiki I find the interaction and community spirit bolstered and not hindered by knowing the Things On Wikis Mind. Keeps me sharp, too.
Of all the Starting Points recommended, I find Road Maps the most useful. -- Lion Kimbro
See: Recent Changes Junkie, Recent Changes Discussion, Too Many Recent Changes, Recent Changes Considered Harmful
See original on c2.com 