Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:46:43 +0100 (BST) From: Matt R matt_crypto@yahoo.co.uk

So, if the Review Club has sufficient expertise, it reviews the article itself. If it feels unqualified, it solicits outside expertise. Forgive me if I've butchered the intent of your post, but this sounds pretty close to a requirement for expert knowledge to me.

(Reference: http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-September/030521.html )

We positively DO want to get all the *expert knowledge* we can get. However we should NOT make the mistake of thinking that the only way we could get hold of *expert knowledge* was formally installing accredited experts and giving them more power than the next guy. I'm getting hoarse saying it, but: The idea is that all input should prevail by it's own merit and NOT by merit of the person contributing it holding a degree (=evidence of prior achievement). Letting EVERY contribution prevail on its own merit will be MORE likely to lead to superior results.

YES to *expert knowledge*. YES to having people in our midst who ''could theoretically'' be regarded as "experts". NO to actually calling them "experts". (It would introduce bias, eg. it would intimidate some contributors who might have something useful to say and would choose to censor themselves because of false awe.) NO to expressly installing "experts". (They will come automatically.) NO to designating anyone an "expert" and NO to associating privilege with such labels. (It would lead to less scrutiny, because the "expert's" words would no longer have to prevail on their own merit.) "One man, one vote" will suffice.

YES to an ''additional option'' to seek outside help: Only where the collective consensus of the review group gets to be that the group doesn't know enough, then seek help from outside experts. With this step, and ONLY with this step (and only as a last resort) the relevant review board ''could'' also look for academic degrees to for guidance of who might be competent. This last resort only becomes necessary when seeking outside help -- and that's because the outside world is not engaged in a Wiki process whereby it is possible only to look at the actual merit of "what was said". Using the "who said it"-principle when looking for outside expertise is a crutch, no doubt. But it's the "next best thing" to the Wiki process and it may be the only option left outside of the Wikisphere.

Moreover, a weakness of this system is that the Review Club could easily make a mistake and not realise when it has insufficient expertise -- people generally dislike admitting their limitations.

An individual person might be tempted to oversell him/herself. Yet, because we're looking at a group of people engaged in a process as complete peers, that danger is minimized.

It seems much better to me to have mandatory input from some expert with evidence of his or her achievement.

NO. See above.

-- Matt (User:Matt Crypto)

Thanks and regards,

-- Jens [[User:Ropers|Ropers]] www.ropersonline.com