On 9/17/06, Delirium delirium@hackish.org wrote:
Kim van der Linde wrote:
What I do know is that experts have in general a short life span at Wikipedia (if they join at all), and that is not going to change.
That's not my experience---hundreds, if not thousands, of Wikipedians are experts in a variety of fields. I'm a PhD student in one field, and will presumably still be a Wikipedian when I have my PhD (and am already an expert in some sub-areas). I know professors, graduate students, lawyers, game developers, engineers, and a variety of other professionals and experts who edit Wikipedia. In fact I'm often surprised by how often I recognize the names of Wikipedians from elsewhere.
-Mark
I concur with Mark here. Like most of the "expert rebellion," Kim is an editor in one of the few areas (evolution) where even clear argument and reliable sources deteriorate quickly, because so many people feel they have more/better knowledge about it than they do AND place a lot of metaphyiscal weight on that knowledge. The situation is similar in philosophy, the subject area of much of the expert rebellion.
Many, many more expert editors do stick around, and their numbers are growing. They tend to be exopedians, so we don't notice them much unless they're in our neck of the 'pedia.
-Sage (User:Ragesoss)