[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Leadership (was NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors}

[Andreas Kolbe]

--- On Sat, 5/2/11, wiki <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com> wrote:
> From: wiki <doc.wikipedia at ntlworld.com>

> If we really wanted our core topic articles to be at FA
> standard, we'd need
> to adopt a totally different process. One where a writer
> was allowed to
> start from scratch and write a new article, and then
> demonstrate to the
> community that it was superior to the existing one. Good
> writers with
> expertise are always going to find it highly unattractive
> to begin with the
> mess they find, and argue with ignorance and POV pushers
> for every change
> they wish to make. That process will tend to drive experts,
> or indeed
> careful research/writers off.


Precisely. FWIW, this is what I recommended to the scholar I mentioned
earlier (who has written several books on the Jehovah's Witnesses): Go 
ahead, announce your intention on the article's talk page and at the 
relevant WikiProject, write the article, and then present it to the wider
community for adoption.

I assured him that Wikipedia would welcome the article, once it was
formatted and referenced correctly, over the likely objections of both 
the Jehovah's Witnesses and the Witness-bashers frequenting the article. 

I haven't heard back from him ... :)

If we want to have scholars contributing, this is an option that has to be 
on the table.

Andreas

 
> The nub of the problem is what aim of this project and what
> is the (usually
> welcome) by-product. 
> 
> *Are we aiming at writing quality articles - and crowd
> sourcing and
> consensus are merely (often useful) means - but may be put
> aside if a
> certain article is better written a different way. In these
> cases we'll put
> up with the crowd-sourced amateur article, but only until
> and unless
> something better is offered. 
> 
> *Or are we aiming at crowd sourcing and consensus created
> articles. In which
> case, we are content to allow mono-authored FAs, but only
> in the gaps. If
> the crowd want to create their collaborative mess, then
> this is to be
> preferred, and the FA with his superior article must
> necessarily go
> elsewhere. 
> 
> I've always found the problem with Wikipedia is that it has
> components which
> usually work remarkably well together (wiki, open editing,
> no-privileged
> editors, neutrality, verifiability, quality) but since it
> has never defined
> which of these is core and which is "the means to the end",
> on the occasions
> when there is a conflict between choosing one of the
> elements over another
> we are all at sea.
> 
> 
> Scott
>       
> 
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