Some of those suggestions have merits. The Australian Deletion Project
sorting is working out quite well because we have editors who make sure that
relevant notices are listed when appropriate.
It is often quite useful to list articles at the appropriate discussion
point to get the viewpoint of those people who know more about the subject.
The other day I listed Britlist, a website with a lot of Google results but
with an article written by an employee of the company, on the British
Wikipedian noticeboard. I wanted to determine whether it was a notable
company or just someone trying to get free advertising. As an Australian, I
didn't know this. After contributions from 4 or 5 British Wikipedians, it
was determined that it was a non-notable website with just 39 unique Google
hits and listed on AfD. This sort of prediscussion amongst interested people
can be useful.
As to expertise, the best way is to show that you know what you are talking
about is to demonstrate by casting considered votes. It is easy to claim
expertise over the web but more difficult to show it.
Regards
Keith Old
On 11/16/05, Brown, Darin <Darin.Brown(a)enmu.edu> wrote:
Message: 4
Date: Tue, 15 Nov 2005 12:49:12 -0000
From: "charles matthews" <charles.r.matthews(a)ntlworld.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Wikipedia's provable anti-expertise bias (was
How did thishappen (comixpedia??))
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)Wikipedia.org>
Message-ID: <005f01c5e9e2$fc09d270$7cac0656@NorthParade>
Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed; charset="iso-8859-1";
reply-type=original
Filtering: make a 24 hour wait before nominations go public at AfD, so
that
admins can do speedy deletes and keeps.
Mediated: sort noms with admin sponsors to delete from those which are
not
speedied but have no support either way.
Sort: by relevant WikiProject for example. Nominator's responsibility.
Make
sorted noms a crisper process.
Categorise: why this nomination?
All excellent suggestions! Have these ideas been raised before? It seems
these *could* go a long way to smoothing things out at AfD.
All this is without Sangerising and having people
arguing that other
people
don't know what they're talking about.
Sangerising is one thing. I'm certainly not in favor of worshipping
expertise, credentials, degrees, or elitism. But it's one thing to be
anti-credentialist and anti-elitist, where you're throwing out the
*requirement* that people have credentials to voice an opinion. It's quite
another to *boast* about how ignorant you are on a subject, and still make
decisions based on the ignorance you just declared. I don't consider being
against *that* behaviour to be Sangerising.
Put it this way: I guess I'm "elitist" in the sense that I'm willing
(I
hope) to listen to and possibly defer to people on subjects, when they
know
more about them or are better informed about them. Where I'd like to think
I'm "anti-elitist" is that I don't hold formal credentials as the only
way
to establish expertise. There are many roads to Rome. If someone
demonstrates, by repeated contributions, discussions, and comments, that
they're knowledgeable and informed, then I will listen and tend to defer
to
them on that subject. I know I'm not perfect and I don't always hold to
this
in practice, but it's what I aim for.
When someone openly boasts their ignorance on a particular subject, but
still insists their voice should carry equal weight on that subject, it
seems to me their not just being anti-credentialist, they're eschewing any
kind of expertise at all, whether it's based on credentials or community
reputation or individual worthiness. So, I don't see being *against* that
kind of behaviour as being pro-credentialist or elitist.
darin
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