On 2/3/11 11:59 AM, Carcharoth wrote:
On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Andreas
Kolbe<jayen466(a)yahoo.com> wrote:
The next ten years of Wikipedia should be about
multiplying the number of
real-life scholars and experts participating. The Ambassadors program is a
good start. Once the demographics change, the rest will follow; and until
the demographics change, all the talking will avail nothing.
This is an excellent
point. Though you may get some angst from those
already present who may feel pushed out as they see the culture of
Wikipedia changing (think how hard it has been for some of those
present from the very beginning, or near the beginning, to adapt over
the last ten years). How to manage such change is an interesting
problem.
It's important to make sure we do maintain the aspects of Wikipedia's
culture that have made it work, though. I'm a professor in my day job
(though I was an undergrad when I became a Wikipedian), and I don't see
academia and academic experts as holding all advantages, though they/we
do do well in the having-a-lot-of-domain-knowledge arena.
What about Wikipedia's culture actually led to an encyclopedia being
written, with a lot of good information, and a fairly neutral tone for
the most part? That's something Nupedia didn't succeed in, and on the
second point is something even most academic-press books don't succeed
in--- the median overview book on a subject sneaks in quite a bit of
opinion and original research, and sometimes even digs at academic
opponents if the editors let them get away with it, which is why you
can't really read an academic book without *also* reading a few
journals' reviews of it.
-Mark