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