NSK wrote:
On Saturday 23 October 2004 10:14, csherlock(a)ljh.com.au
wrote:
How are we going to counter that expert's
biases?
That's a good observation. Many experts have extreme biases and could hurt WP.
Yes, they do. Thus, we avoid becoming a community of experts.
How do we make
sure we do not become elitist? How do we have many people
contribute to the piece?
The idea of Elitism is not to have many people, but few hard-working excellent
contributors who produce state-of-the-art work.
It's that core group of dedicated hard workers that is most at risk of
becoming elites. The first thing that they need to do is become aware
of that risk both as a group and as individuals. If a newbie asks a
dumb question, or in good faith adds a stupid article you need to
approach the situation from his perspective of it being the first time
he has done so, and not the perspective of it being the hundredth time
that you have dealt with it. Elitism is overcome by appropriate acts
of humility.
Experrts are a form of elite. If you depend too much on experts (and
hence their biases you become elitist. The solution is in more, not
fewer, editors.
Ec