On 10 Sep 2004, at 10:35, wikien-l-request@Wikipedia.org wrote:
Message: 9 Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 00:20:54 -0700 (PDT) From: Daniel Mayer maveric149@yahoo.com Subject: RE: [WikiEN-l] A future for Nupedia?
--- Patrick Aiden Hunt skyler1534@comcast.net wrote:
I know this may seem to some to be a silly question, but why do you need someone with academic credentials reviewing articles? Any normal encyclopedia simply uses a basic bibliography and the information in the article is from books that are written by experts who have academic credentials already recognized. If we had people simply cite sources for information, then it seems like we would have to worry much less about the reviewers' credentials.
Pragmatic; many people will not trust and in fact warn people against using our content otherwise. Think of it as building a bridge to the old way of publishing and to the drones who think that is the only way content can be trusted.
If we'd insist on, or automatically give preference to, academic credentials/individuals at any stage and in any way, then we'd yield to, and become part of, the self-fulfilling prophecy that only academic folks can "get it right".
Please understand that I'm not against academics participating in our review processes (just as everybody else). But I'm very much against reverting the Wikipedia into just another place where "academically accredited" equals "holier than thou". I fervently favour the notion of "one man, one vote" (with apologies to non-sexist language advocates). Just because most people in the world today allow many of their equally good ideas to be overruled by <awe>academic experts</awe>, doesn't make it the right thing to do. Yes, true, most academics are, on average, probably better qualified than non-academics. But under the traditional system A LOT of brilliant brilliant input is lost, because people are simply put off by never having a chance of working as equals (unless they ''become'' academics as well) and people are put off by that, if not even turned away at the door for failing to meet "minimum standards".
I believe. I believe that every human is unique. I believe that every human has unique contributions to make to human knowledge. I believe that in an ideal world there would be a system of joint knowledge aggregation that could embrace everybody's contribution and then magically combine these contributions (diverse and imperfect, all) into something elaborate and serene that's more than the sum of its parts. I believe that Wikipedia currently ''IS'' that dream. It allows just that to happen. Not easily, not automatically, not without dispute, but it does happen. It would pain me if our future implementations of our review processes would end that dream. Because taking this "pragmatic" step is not a bridge to the past. It's ''becoming'' the bad old days again. And I for one, would feel betrayed for all the contributions I made. The Wikipedia you're proposing is not the Wikipedia I submitted my work to.
-- Jens [[User:Ropers|Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com
PS: This is NOT against having a better review system -- I ''DO'' want just that. I again refer to my previous post: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-September/030496.html
Again, I hold that the "review club" should be very open to all comers, just as the "edit club". We may choose a more disciplined approach within the "review club" and be more harsh about disturbances, but we absolutely should not ask for (and entrants should not mention their) academic qualifications at the doorstep. Their ''actual writing'' should be their sole guarantor. With reference to this post: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-September/030499.html If renowned academic Alice cannot conclusively prove and defend her view of things and layman Bob can, then we should follow Bob. We should NOT believe something is right just because "the right people" say it. That's a reverse ad-hominem. Go read the [[ad hominem]] article. Do it now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
--- Jens Ropers ropers@ropersonline.com wrote:
Again, I hold that the "review club" should be very open to all comers, just as the "edit club". We may choose a more disciplined approach within the "review club" and be more harsh about disturbances, but we absolutely should not ask for (and entrants should not mention their) academic qualifications at the doorstep. Their ''actual writing'' should be their sole guarantor. With reference to this post: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-September/030499.html If renowned academic Alice cannot conclusively prove and defend her view of things and layman Bob can, then we should follow Bob. We should NOT believe something is right just because "the right people" say it. That's a reverse ad-hominem. Go read the [[ad hominem]] article. Do it now: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ad_hominem
Or rather, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Appeal_to_authority
Can we put aside the specific issue of academia, for a moment, and deal with the more general concept of "experts"? I'd like to address one specific instance: would you object to requiring at least one expert to review an article, in addition to laymen? (Let's make the non-trivial assumption that experts exist and are identifable by some means).
I would argue that Wikipedia needs at least one expert to review each article. A non-expert can check things like grammar, spelling, formatting, etc; moreover, a layman can take any fact within an article and, by policy, should be able to verify it to himself. This is a good thing, and is very necessary.
However, there are some things that a non-specialist cannot do, or is limited in his ability to do. A non-expert will struggle to determine whether an article is comprehensive. Unless you have a sufficiently detailed knowledge of the subject, you cannot know what is missing. While obvious omissions can be spotted using common sense (or by looking at a textbook table of contents, say) subtle gaps in more technical areas can only be detected by someone conversant with the field. More generally, a non-expert cannot be certain that the article treats the topic in a balanced way. Here I don't mean NPOV, but the amount of text devoted to various subtopics.
A non-specialist will likely be unaware as to which of the sources cited are out-of-date or erroneous. As an example, I found that when reading about the [[Enigma machine]], I discovered that early publications (in the late 1970s) were riddled with mistakes and errors, which were subsequently acknowledged by the authors and corrected in later literature; however some errors have propogated rapidly and persist on the Internet today, and even, I discovered, within Wikipedia.
These are problems which Wikipedia faces both when writing and when reviewing articles. However, we can tolerate these problems when writing articles -- "eventually" they will get fixed. However, when we review an article and certify it to pass muster, we are in effect claiming that "eventually" has arrived in some measure. The risk is that a dozen competent and diligent non-experts could agree that an article is accurate and well-written, when in fact it has significant flaws detectable only by an expert.
-- Matt (User:Matt_Crypto)
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