Message: 6 Date: Thu, 9 Sep 2004 23:30:32 +0100 From: Rowan Collins rowan.collins@gmail.com Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] A future for Nupedia?
Folks,
I would PLEAD with everyone to '''not''' go the road of requiring academic certifications for approval (or even to value them excessively).
Granted, I agree there is some need for an approval/review mechanism, but once again GNU/Linux/BSD lead the way: We should IMHO simply adopt the current common Open Source software development practice of having '''stable''' and '''current/unstable''' branches -- ''of each article'', in our case. Periodically, articles would be subjected to similar processes like Peer review and/or Featured article candidates. They would then (if successful) have a certain version declared stable (ie. promoted to the stable branch). (The criteria for "stable" should however not be "brilliant prose" but "factual correctness and NPOV".) This would greatly extend review activity as contributors would be motivated to have their contributions approved for stable and would thus increasingly participate in review processes. Once a sufficient number of articles have stable versions, the respective Wikipedia's default user setting could be switched to "display stable branch".
But we should not, definitely not, ''require'' academic accreditation in any way -- or even attach substantial value to it. Let contributions, not certificates be our decisive factors. Accepting something because A says it and A is academically accredited as xyz is the reverse of an [[ad hominem]] attack -- and it's equally flawed logic, IMHO. There are a lot of reasons why under the "academic model" of a knowledge economy a lot of potentially good ideas are lost and wasted. One example of this might be that an otherwise brilliant head may just not be capable of concentrating for hours and months on end and thus might never have a chance of becoming academically recognized. I thought our core strength was just the very fact that we are able to merge each and every bit of input from each and all comers. As I recently wrote to one of our detractors:
Many of us believe that it is beneficial to make it as EASY as possible to contribute to our encyclopedia.
The traditional approach to writing encyclopedias, to aggregating human knowledge, has been to make it as DIFFICULT as possible to contribute. You have to obtain formal certifications and undergo formal training to be even allowed to contribute. This is done in the hope of reaching and maintaining high standards.
Many of us believe that this however stifles progress as it excludes all knowledge and knowledge-based skills obtained in any other way (than formal accreditation).
We put a process in place that will accept all comers in the first instance -- and combine and distill these collective contributions to reach high standards. Our daily growth and quality improvement shows that the traditional approach -- only allowing very few select individuals to contribute -- wastes enormous talent, potential and opportunity for progress in all fields of human knowledge. Thus, one of our core operating principles is to lower any bars to entry as much as possible, if not to outright abolish them. Anyone can contribute. You don't need to provide certifications. You don't need to show ID or a credit card. You don't need to give an email address. You don't even need to log in or create an account. You can edit. Because you have UNIQUE knowledge skills. Dr. Pyotr Anokhin calculated that the number of possible combinations in the human brain was 10 to the power of 799 (seven hundred ninety nine). In short, NO ONE on this planet will ever have the same thoughts as you. It thus makes sense for us to be as inclusive as possible. We would be honored to welcome your contribution to our modest but growing record of human knowledge.
I would be very disappointed to say the least if this community now turned around to go the "traditional academic" way and proved my view of things wrong.
-- Jens [[User:Ropers|Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com