It's dumbing down, but that too derives from the premise that everything has an origin. Computer geeks tend to be fanatically logical, and that does not leave much room for alternative explanations or sources. In many subjects we can fill in the blanks later when someone has the time to spend tracing things, but that approach is not shared with those who believe in the immediacy of a deletion debate.
Ec
WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@lists.wikimedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l
Great thought.
The advantage of the wiki model, and {{sofixit}}, is that it doesn't matter the profession.
I'm not a computer geek, I'm an encyclopedia geek. While my personal work doesn't involve my degree, I did major in history, which leads to this:
http://chnm.gmu.edu/essays-on-history-new-media/essays/?essayid=42
So what we have is an amalgamation of left brain and right brain thinkers working together while building Wikimedia projects, which gets back to my idea of instruction creep interferes with the process of building. It's not an architectural project, we don't have blueprints. Thinking that we do will discourage the "experts/smart people" from contributing. Well, it has as well as will. There's no mitigating factor other than accepting that users will "get" the model of having no deadline and consensus building and work within it, or choose not to no matter the talent or skill/knowledge level.
~Keegan