New subject: Troubling news on Citizendium

17 Jan 2007

...
 -----Original Message-----
From: Marc Riddell [mailto:michaeldavid86@comcast.net]
Sent: Wednesday, January 17, 2007 10:24 AM
To: 'English Wikipedia'
Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

  From: "Nina Stratton"
&lt;ninaeliza(a)gmail.com&gt;
 Reply-To: English Wikipedia &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Date: Wed, 17 Jan 2007 08:20:48 -0800
 To: "English Wikipedia" &lt;wikien-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org&gt;
 Subject: Re: [WikiEN-l] Troubling news on Citizendium

 +!

 On 1/17/07, Stan Shebs &lt;stanshebs(a)earthlink.net&gt; wrote:
> 
> Phil Sandifer wrote:
>> 
>> [...] If Larry wants an encyclopedia free of its biases, he should
>> work on one. But he shouldn't call it an encyclopedia run by experts
>> if he's going to dismiss the experts.
>> 
> There are plenty of experts going at each other with knives on WP;
> expertise is simply a fund of knowledge, and does not magically confer
> diplomatic, communication, or collaboration skills. In fact, great
> knowledge tends to breed arrogance, making conflict more likely, not
> less so. CZ adds real names and attributions to the mix, raising the
> stakes even further by introducing the possibility of effect on one's
> careers. The organizer would need the superior political skills of an
> Ivy League dean to make it all work, but Larry's forum postings don't
> evidence much improvement at diplomacy since the times he was angering
> editors on WP.
> 
> Stan 
Ya know what we need in WP, an Article on Expertaphobia: The fear of, and
seeming intimidation by, people who know stuff about things.

Someone, I don't recall who it was, wrote that they would never work on
something where experts were involved. Really? Who would you go to if you
needed heart surgery, or wanted to learn how to play a violin?

Don't look now, but you are working with the aid of experts right now! Those
marvelous persons behind the scenes of this computerized market place who
make all of this possible. Without them we would be typing into the ether.

Ease up!

Marc Riddell 
Unless I have gotten the personalities mixed up, Stan is himself an certified expert
employed in an academic setting, which is one reason he can make such an incisive comment
about Larry. When I was butting heads with Larry over [[reality]] and [[knowledge]] on
Wikipedia in the old days, we were both doing essentially the same thing, I was doing my
original research thing, making up stuff from whole cloth, while Larry was, working
apparently from memory, putting forth the party line as taught in a freshman philosophy
course, as he understood it. It did not occur to either of us to cite substantial reliable
sources. What resulted was mutual disgust, vigorously expressed.

Experts, to function well on Wikipedia, need to more than just proclaim themselves an
expert and regurgitate what they learned in school. Particularly they must be familiar
with the literature and be able to cite it. That may be a rare talent, as is excellent
teaching, the underlying skill that is involved in writing an introductory textbook, which
is what a Wikipedia article is, in part.

Fred