I've watched this topic get debated endlessly here, & I feel some contributors misunderstand the importance of having academics (i.e., people with advanced degrees in their fields who also either teach or publish) contribute to Wikipedia. As with any resource, asking Academics to contribute has its weaknesses & strengths: Weaknesses: * Training or certification does not mean they are infallible in judgement. There have been countless examples of an academic abusing his or her authority to furtherher/his view, at the cost of delaying the advancement of human knowledge. (Ec & I mentioned 2 some months ago in this maillist: the delay in translating Mayan writing, & the publication of the Dead Sea Scrolls.) And anyone who has attended college probably can recite examples of various professors asserting as incontrovertible truth apalling howlers of judgement. (I could quote a few myself, but that would likely lead to OT arguments.) * Arrogance. By the fact they have arrived at the end of a long road of training, academics tend to be prima donnas; some handle it better than others. I feel this is one reason that some academics have problems dealing with the Internet. It's not so much that they have to respond to every objection -- even if it comes from a crank, a child, or someone quoting an out-of-date textbook -- but that when an Internet group works, it is because its members only care for accuracy & correctness & are equally harsh on anyone who violates these terms whether they are a tenured professor, a crank, a child, or someone quoting an out-of-date textbook. * Careerism. It's an open secret that competition for academic posts is fierce, if not vicious. And if a person knows that she/he is not the brightest & best in a gvien field, there is a temptation to compromise standards. Instead of Wikipedia receiving the benefit ofexpert knowledge, it may instead be victimized by someone only seeking to advance a career. Strengths: * Their training or education is systematic, which means they usually know what they don't know. Self-educated people frequently don't realize that, despite their deep amount of knowledge, that what the holes in their nkowledge are. * By teaching or publishing papers, they confront the problem of communicating the subject. They have dealt with the problem of explaining jargon & complex ideas into words a non-expert can understand, & again, know what points need to be covered for an article on a given subject to be considered complete. * They usually are up to date on the secondary literature; they know what are important POVs that need to be included. The problem with importing so many articles on ancient Greece & Rome from EB 1911 is not that facts have changed. The ancient Greks are still considered the victors in the Persian Wars, Augustus is still considered a Roman Emperor, Plotinus is still a philosopher. The problem is that in the last 90 years scholarship has turned to other issues that the editors of the EB 1911 did not think of covering, most noteably the social & economic history of ancient Greece & Rome -- which is contained entirely in the secondary literature published since 1911. And much of that secondary literature is in the form of specialized periodicals only available at University libraries -- & sometimes not even there. In short, if faced with choosing between an expert who does not care to conform to the Wikipedia way (by which I mean is willing to engage in give-&-take in the writing of material) & a non-expert who is willing to learn & "play nice" with other contributors, I would choose the latter. And I hope I am not alone in this preference. Geoff