Geoff Burling wrote:

This issue with Darmouth brings into the present a something I've thought about concerning Wikipedia for some time.

On the one side, there is a real concern for the quality of content, which is clearly under attack from many quarters. Wackos who believe that it is electrical radiation that imposes the speed of light as the ultimate limit of acceleration, who insist that the Wikipedian philosphy of accepting all POVs means that we have to include their own "unique" POV; people who are obsessed at defending their national pride by insisting that a fellow citizen actually invented the toaster; the trolls who enjoy stirring the pot by seing just how plausible they can make an unreasonable argument sound; & countless individuals who believe that the act of reverting any edit trumps any argument, no matter how well argued.

I generally agree with this assessment, but something is missing here in the context of the Dartmouth controversy. These disputes tend to fall into a number of consistent themes. This one did not involve wacko science or political partisanship. Instead it was an issue of whether the articles were important enough to include in Wikipedia. There were a significant number of articles involved, presumably one from each class member. The person leading the deletion squad may have engaged in discussions with one of the students. (I don't know for sure that he did), From there he sought to apply that discussion to all the others who may not have had a fair chance to defend their articles.

What is important is much more difficult to define. With wacko science it is fairly easy to point to an underlying fallacy in the proponent's thinking. With political dissension there are often two (at least) clearly identifiable and opposing points of view. What are the objective criteria for determining what is important? Dartmouth is one college in a relatively unpopulous state of the United States. The number of people to whom this material is personally important is bound to be small. It will be even smaller for the high schools that some have sought to include. It will still be small for the university that has the highest enrollment in the world.

The "Wiki is not paper" principle favours a much broader interpretation of important. We are not restricted by the physical limitations of a paper encyclopedia. We can afford to bring importance to a more local level.

Bah! If I don't recognize the contributor -- or even more clearly, if that person is editting from an IP number -- I'll just consider her/him/it a troublemaker, list the articles that person produces on VfD & revert all of her/his/its edits as "vandalism".

The first question that should precede the cry of "vandalism" should be, "Is this person acting in good faith?" It's understandable that a lot of the common vandalism will come from IP numbers, and that we should continue to view those contributions with some suspicion, but that's not an excuse for failing to read their articles objectively.

On the other side, there is the low barrier of entry to Wikipedia that Academia lacks -- allowing the well-read amateur to add vital new information that might not make it into other fora because it does not have (1) the right credentials attached; (2) observe the right prevalent orthodoxy; or (3) simply needs a little more coaching -- which an isolated amateur or "info-nerd" won't find any other way. There is something admittedly daunting about Academia & profesional research that intimidates beginners -- who too often discover that the professionals realy aren't that professional in terms of resources, behavior, or analysis.

The low barrier is one of our most valuable features, and probably the feature most responsible for Wikipedia's phenomenal growth.

I have shared your view of "professionals" since long before I ever heard of Wikipedia. We may have set our sights on the academics, but they are not the only problematical professionals. The intimidation is far more widespread, and what we are doing is only the beginning of this revolution. I am amazed and amused when I see someone on this list prefacing his comments about copyright with "but IANAL".

However Wikipedia, by its "less than perfect, but better than it was before" approach helps to demolish this elitist misconception.

One of the vital dynamics to Wikipedia is fact that to make any edit stick, one has to be willing to engage in a conversation about it. One has to not only convince an audience that a given POV is plausible, but that the person advocating it is credible & reasonable. Unfortunately, not all who come to add to Wikipedia are willing to engage in a conversation about their contributions (nationalists being a prime example of this reluctance, but everyone is guilty of this reluctance at one time or another), but hopefully those of us who understand the importance of this dynamic will continue to advocate it, & keep Wikipedia vibrant despite all of the pressures against it.

I accept that dynamic, but it needs to be bilateral. Even if we assume that the newbie has grasped the mechanics of Wikipedia to the point where he knows how talk pages function, he needs to be made to feel that his ideas are treated with respect. There's a big difference between enterring a discussion as equals on the article's talk page in a one on one conversation, and the immediate need to defend one's views on a VfD page. Before the newbie knows what's happening he is already facing a half-dozen votes to delete his article, many of which are accompanied by rude comments that trivialize his efforts. He knows nothing about the status and influence of the voters beyond the fact that they have been around longer than he has. Sysops in particular need the patience to realize that they may have gone over the same arguments many times with many people, but that this is the first time that they have done it with this particular individual.

And if I may allowed to be chauvanistic for a moment, I think this ideal is a valuable part of Western Civilization that needs to be taught to the rest of the world. We should respect other people's POV, we should be willing to explain our own POV, & that there should be a fair & beneficial exchange between them.

Ideally yes, but there is still a significant segment of Western Civilization that has yet to learn this. Those who use their membership in a Western Civilization as an argument in support of their POV have not learned it.

Ec