[Foundation-l] Fwd: Re: [VereinDE-l] Bericht zur Verleihung der Zedler-Medaille und Academy

[David Goodman]

If we are talking of what would ideally be the cases, we would want
people who are   experts in specific fields and also  expert in
writing about them and also expert in the specifics of  working in
Wikipedia. We have a few of them. We should work equally in supporting
people coming to this from any possible direction:  People who come
with some degree of knowledge in a subject that interests them can
learn it; people who come without knowing how to do research can learn
how to do that, people who come without the ability  to write clearly
at a relatively elementary level can learn to do this, people without
specific experience in Wikipedia can acquire it.

What is needed is primarily the willingness to learn.  Subject experts
who insist on writing at a higher level than our readers can
understand on the principle that anyone who wants to read them should
learn the subject first can not work effectively here if the persist
in that attitude, but should stick to specialized encyclopedias.
Academics who  refuse to learn to write clearly should stick to the
academic journals where their style is accepted. People who do not
adjust to working in a collaborative environment with people of
different skill levels, should write somewhere else where they can
work independently, elsewhere. Those who refuse to learn the basics of
our specialized conventions cannot usefully  continue here. Amateurs
who refuse to learn the basics of a subject they insist on writing
about cannot contribute usefully in that area.

But those whose strength is in one aspect can be useful in that
aspect. Librarians have the skill to  find sources in any subject
area. Copyeditors can makes good prose in any subject they can read.
Editors in the traditional sense can organize material even in
unfamiliar fields.  Experts who cannot write can still correct errors.
Even unskilled amateurs without the ability to write themselves can at
least say what material it is that they need better explained. And at
the extreme, those who do not understand our conventions make the best
outside critics.

What is absolutely impossible is people in any background who insist
on ownership of the work. When academics complain we cannot provide
this they are correct. We cannot provide this, and with our basic
structure and assumptions never shall be able to. Nor should we even
try to accommodate this: we do not have am monopoly on channels for
providing information. Only if  we were the only way ideas could be
communicated would we need to make provisions for all possible
different ways of providing it, however idiosyncratic.

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 12:12 PM, Milos Rancic <millosh at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 15:32, Henning Schlottmann
> <h.schlottmann at gmx.net> wrote:
>> On 27.11.2010 01:41, Milos Rancic wrote:
>>
>>> In other words, our recruitment base are not well formed scientists,
>>> but high school students who are interested in Wikipedia (and other
>>> Wikimedia projects) per se. After five years on project, a former high
>>> school student -- probably a university student or even a fresh
>>> employee -- is much more experienced encyclopedist than any regular
>>> scientist who spent his life in research. Simply, a couple of years of
>>> daily dealing with various encyclopedic articles creates an expert in
>>> encyclopedistics.
>>
>> I do not agree here. High school (and most undergraduate college
>> students as well) lack the access to scientific literature and/or the
>> experience to use it to compile NPOV descriptions. OTOH most graduate
>> students, young professionals and scientists lack the time and the focus
>> to contribute regularly. In this part of life, they are building a
>> family and a career.
>>
>> The most important base for recruiting should be retired professionals,
>> teachers, scientists. They have the background and the time. Many will
>> like the intellectual challenge and enjoy to pass on their experience.
>>
>> High school students are our readers, don't confuse them with our autors.
>
> We already have a couple of generations of former high school students
> trained to be encyclopedists. And those who stayed with us are among
> the best ones. On the planet. I witnessed so many times that a
> university student with a couple of years of expertise has superior
> encyclopedic methods in comparison to many experts.
>
> Unfortunately, retired experts have to be much more extraordinary than
> high schools students to be incorporated into the Wikimedia culture.
> Good knowledge of computers and good nerves obviously make wider gaps
> than learning policies and encyclopedic and [hopefully] scientific
> methods.
>
> Incorporating new generations into the community is painful task. But
> we don't have other options.
>
> Encyclopedic work is like any other. It needs a lot of practice to be
> mastered. And there is no better place on Earth to master it than
> Wikipedia.
>
> Ideally, encyclopedists shouldn't be experts in particular fields, but
> experts in writing encyclopedia: those who are able to compile known
> facts into readable articles, according to the encyclopedic rules.
>
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-- 
David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG