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

[Henning Schlottmann]

On 27.11.2010 18:12, Milos Rancic 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.

There are great people in any age or demographic group. But the highly
motivated high school students don't need recruiting, they will grow
from reader to author on their own. I'm talking about active recruiting
and refer to the allocation of funds by the WMF for this purpose. And I
strongly believe that we can get the most bang for the bucks by
addressing retired professionals.

> 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.

In the bigger languages, the low hanging fruits are already covered. We
really should concentrate funds to improvement of existing articles and
expanding only in underdeveloped, usually highly arcane topics. For both
we need people with knowledge and understanding. The latter usually only
comes with experience.

> 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.

That was true in the beginning. Today we really need more specific
knowledge and understanding.

Ciao Henning