On 8/18/07, Thomas Dalton <thomas.dalton(a)gmail.com> wrote:
The way I see
it, as a reader mind you, is that so long as the
person's name is out there I can decide for myself whether or not to
consider the person an expert.
Well, yes, that works as far as determining what counts as an expert.
It doesn't work as far as verifying someone's qualifications. We can't
expect readers to phone the university and confirm someone is really a
lecturer there for each article they read, whereas we could do that
ourselves if we deem it necessary. Also, there are ways we can confirm
the person we're talking to really is Professor Joe Bloggs (email from
official address, putting a note of official website, etc), a reader
can't do that.
Sure, I wouldn't have a problem with that. And it's not without
precedent. I've seen the accounts of people blocked until they
verified their identity (at least one instance I remember was in the
case of a university professor), so it's already something that's
being done.
"We can't expect readers to phone the university and confirm someone
is really a lecturer there for each article they read" No, but a
reader who actually cares about such things could easily check the
website of the professor's school. Or they could check the Wikipedia
article on the person. University professors are generally considered
notable, aren't they?
But yeah, I
guess I misread your suggestion. "What experts should do
as experts is review articles and put their stamp on them as being
correct." I guess the problem with that is that the articles have to
be correct first.
You're right, some system for experts to correct or suggest
corrections to an article would also be required.
Right now all of this can already be done on the talk pages
(corrections, suggestions, stamps of approval). But there isn't much
of it being done.