Message: 10
Date: Fri, 12 Jan 2007 12:19:31 -0500
From: "James Hare" <messedrocker(a)gmail.com>
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] (no subject)
To: "English Wikipedia" <wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Message-ID: <
43348cda0701120919k15954458g636078210a2adede(a)mail.gmail.com>
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I suggested something on another thread that stated that only people
with
background in a certain field should be qualified
to judge notability.
Chemists determine chemical notability, Finns determine notability of
Finnish folk, the list goes on. Perhaps it's time to give AFD a good ol'
reworking to separate the opinions of people who are qualified to speak
about the subject's notability and outsider's opinions (both are
important,
but we can't put the fingers of clueless
people on the red button).
Hopefully, through this, closing AFDs will be based less on vote
counting
and more on evaluating the opinions of people.
I'd have to agree with James on this one. This could also be a boon for
FA
and GA promotions. It would diminish the tendancy for voting at AFD, FAC,
etc. to look like a division of "i don't like it" and the "i like
it"
camps.
Several months ago, an AFD came up for "Amafanius", an early Roman
Epicurean
philosopher whose works, while unfortunately lost to the ages, were
discussed at length in the works of Cicero (who trashed Amafanius with
glee), and in Michel de Montaigne. Because of their referencing,
the philosophical offerings of Amafanius can actually be
reconstructed...but
only in broad strokes. As someone who studied classics at Rutgers and am
well-versed in this area, I recognized that he was notable and should have
a
place here at Wikipedia. Thankfully, because a few others were just as
well-versed, we were able to save the article.
But, unfortunately, as it typical around here, a large number of users
who
obvious appeared to be the tech-saavy, internet-raised Pokemon-crowd for
whom nothing exists before, say, 20 years ago, voted for "Delete".
One of the failings, one that probably contributes to some of the negative
reputation Wikipedia has earned, is that it does not have any expert
oversight. Perhaps some sort of prominent, scholarly, editorial advisory
board would be in order? Even if loosely bureaucratic, it would add a
little more weight to the credibility of the encyclopedia that would be a
worthwhile step in counteracting an image diminished by our pop-culture
heaviness (pokemon, star trek, etc.) and "anyone can edit (read:
vandalise/insert false information)" repuation.
Regards,
Christopher D. Thieme
User:ExplorerCDT
Try Citizendium. Google it. Go there now.
Sincerely,
Nina
"Look at the sky. We are not alone. The whole universe is friendly to us and
conspires only to give the best to those who dream and work." - Abdul Kalam