[Wikipedia-l] Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more like the free software movement

[Stephen Gilbert]

Hi Larry.

> In particular, the Wikipedia project has been
> defined in such a way that
> we have few official standards and no virtually
> requirements for quality
> of the rigorous sort that Linux had when it set out
> to rewrite Unix from
> scratch (and later remain compliant with stringent
> technical standards
> like the POSIX standard).

Nupedia had high standards and many policies in place
from the beginning but collapsed under its own weight.
Wikipedia, on the other hand, encourages natural and
organic growth. We develop principles naturally.

As for Linus Torvalds, he didn't "set out to rewrite
Unix from scratch". He was using Minix and wanted to
try his hand at writing something better. He wrote the
Linux kernal for fun, in his spare time, while still
an 
undergraduate. His "quality control" consisted of
doing what he felt like doing. He then shared it with
people in the hopes that others would find it
interesting. Was He a good programmer? Sure. But he
was not (and is not) a computer scientist.

Take a look at this old Usenet thread from 1992:
http://groups.google.com/groups?hl=en&lr=lang_en&ie=UTF-8&safe=off&threadm=12595%40star.cs.vu.nl&rnum=1&prev=/groups%3Fq%3Dlinux%2Bminix%2Bobsolete%2Bgroup:comp.os.minix%2Bauthor:Andy%2Bauthor:Tanenbaum%26hl%3Den%26lr%3Dlang_en%26ie%3DUTF-8%26safe%3Doff%26as_drrb%3Db%26as_mind%3D29%26as_minm%3D1%26as_miny%3D1992%26as_maxd%3D30%26as_maxm%3D1%26as_maxy%3D1992%26selm%3D12595%2540star.cs.vu.nl%26rnum%3D1

Andy Tanenbaum, a well respected academic computer 
scientist, puts forth his opinion that the Linux 
kernel is (and was from the beginning) obsolete,
because it is a monolithic design, unlike his own
educational OS, Minix. If Torvalds the
student had listened to the expert, there would be no
Linux.

> Our task,
> by contrast, is to write a very large, unbiased
> encyclopedia.  What this
> task entails is far more nebulous (though I and
> others have worked very
> hard to settle on and explain what it does involve),
> and many reasonable
> people reasonably think that this doesn't strictly
> speaking require
> genuine expertise.

I don't think anyone would argue that the
contributions
of highly qualified specialists are particularlly
valuable. But whether or not we *need* specialists in
all fields to write a quality general reference work
is debatable.

> But it does.  If you think otherwise, you're living
> in a fantasy world.

Well, I'm in good company, I guess.

<snipped a bit about lack of exact standards for
encyclopedias>

> The problem is that, with several notable
> exceptions, highly-educated
> people aren't drawn to Wikipedia.

That's a little insulting. I consider myself a highly
educated person even though I haven't started any
graduate work yet. Perhaps you mean specialists? If
so, I agree.

> It's not
> surprising why not: I would
> like to suggest that this is similar to asking
> veteran programmers working
> on Linux and its applications to work with,
> supervise, and put up with
> rank beginners and script kiddies.  If they had had
> to do that, I doubt
> very much that the free software movement would have
> come a fraction of
> the distance it has.

I don't think the comparison is sound. Writing
software is a far more specific skill than researching
a topic and writing prose. For example, Julie Kemp and
I have worked on articles together, even though she is
an historian while I'm just another one of those
garden-variety generalists.

> Please don't misunderstand.  My concern with
> expertise and knowledgeable
> participants does not reflect an overvaluation of
> formal qualifications,
> or academic elitism, by the way.  (If you think I
> have enormous respect
> for someone just on the basis of their academic
> credentials, you *really*
> don't know me.)
>
> If someone without a degree (I can
> think of a few) can
> write and think well and convey what they know in a
> way that reflects
> expert knowledge on the subject, that's great.  May
> their kind be fruitful
> and multiply (among our ranks).  There's no reason
> for me to suggest
> otherwise, just as there's no reason to ask free
> software developers to
> have degrees in computer science before they get
> their hands dirty working
> on open source software.

That's good to hear, especially in light of the
relative lack of Ph.Ds in folk dancing, truck driving
and science fiction movies. :)
 
<snipped section on the difficulty of developing good
software naturally setting a high bar, which I agree
with>

> It is also less often
> acknowledged that there
> are necessarily elite groups--elites based on merit,
> but elites
> nonetheless--who are in charge of releasing new
> versions of important
> packages.  That's as it should be.

Yes, for software. As you said, it takes specific
expertise to program.

> Wikipedia is quite different.  The bar to
> contribution is very low, and if
> there is any elite in charge, then with all due
> respect to everyone (and
> that's a lot--there are a lot of *extremely* smart
> and knowledgeable
> people here), our elite would seem rather less than
> impressive compared to
> the leading members of the intelligentsia that
> contribute to the likes of
> Britannica.

The comparison between Wikipedia's and Britannica's
elite contributors is irrelevant; it's the comparison
of articles that interests me. At the moment, we lose.

Writing encyclopedia articles is far different from
writing software. In most cases, a person writing on a
given topic does not need to be an expert. What *is*
required is the ability to research the topic,
synthesize the information and write it in clear,
understandable prose. An encyclopedia article is not
written for experts; it is for people looking for
general information on the topic. Physicists and
sociologists generally don't turn to Britannica for
information in their fields.

That doesn't mean that experts shouldn't write
detailed and specific Wikipedia articles; quite the
contrary. But if our primary goal is to produce a
general reference, generally educated people can do
the job very well.

> Along these lines I suggest there's another
> disanalogy between the free
> software movement and our free encyclopedia
> movement.  The free software
> movement is organized and led by world-class
> computer scientists
> associated with industry and academia.

Not from what I've seen. Many of the major free
software projects have been the products of students
and software engineers.

> The free
> encyclopedia movement is
> much newer, but (forgive me) it doesn't seem to be
> travelling in the
> direction of being led by world-class thinkers,
> scholars, and scientists,
> as a close analogy would seem to require.  To be
> quite honest, it was good
> to lay me off when economic necessity required; now
> do the right thing and
> ask Jacques Barzun (before he dies), or some other
> distinguished
> intellectual, to head up the project properly.

Most of us doing the grunt work of writing and
organizing articles feel that Wikipedia is doing quite
well without an official leader. In saying this, I in
no way wish to imply that your leadership was not
important to the project. All I'm saying is that you
got Wikipedia to the point of being a self-sustaining
community working toward our common goal, and now we
don't need anyone filling that role.

Now, if Mr. Barzun wanted to lead a second try at the
Nupedia project, that would be different.

<snip ideas about Nupedia acting as an article-vetting
body>

> Whatever the specific Nupedia article creation
and/or > vetting process
> might turn out to be--see the Nupedia-L archives for
> discussion ad
> nauseum--one thing is increasingly clear to me.  
> Namely, unless there 
> is a
> dramatic change in how the free encyclopedia
movement > is organized,
> Wikipedia will be stuck with, on balance,
mediocrity.

You're not the only one who thinks so. Many other
projects have been criticized in the same manner, only
to become great in spite of the naysayers. Of course,
many more have failed miserably. I find myself on the
side that thinks Wikipedia will become great without
the traditional panel of experts calling the shots.
Time will tell.

That said, I hope Nupedia is not dead yet. I would
love to see specialists of all kinds reviewing and
approving Wikipedia articles. I simply disagree with
the absolute necessity of it.

Stephen Gilbert

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