On Jun 5, 2005, at 1:31 AM, Sj wrote:
On 5/24/05, Chad Perrin <perrin(a)apotheon.com>
wrote:
On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 08:04:02PM +0200, Angela
wrote:
> On 5/24/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales(a)wikia.com> wrote:
What Chad said. Wikipedia will be recognized as an unparallelled
reference work soon enough, without anyone apologizing for its muddy
openness. And I think that we will see small scalable gains by
improving the way we recognize excellence and expertise in
subject-areas -- say, by avoiding the initial stages of certain edit
wars, by improving the efficiency of RC-patrol, watchlist-patrol, and
article/subject reviewing. But it seems far more interesting to me to
emphasize that our success emerged from the mud and with its help,
than to assure everyone that the mud can be washed off.
It isn't clear to me that the project would have become such a success
/without/ contributions from dedicated kooks, eccentrics, trolls, and
people who are just plain misguided in their convictions. Explicitly
focusing on credentials might well reduce contribution; even in its
absence, the most common reason my brilliant iconoclastic US friends
give me for not writing about <whatever they're reading / studying> in
Wikipedia is that they are "no expert" on the subject.
--SJ
_______________________
In a world that is moving to greater transparency, wikipedia is, in
fact, a model. Consider being able to earn one's degree by writing on
wikipedia. Edit articles, have a thesis advisor review contributions,
and score credit appropriately. Adding bibliography, annotation and
other activities which "polish" wikipedia would be part of assignments.