zero 0000 wrote
- Sarah points out the following text from WP:NOR : "anyone--without specialist knowledge--who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
That seems to be broken. Examples of specialist knowledge which might be required are the ability to read a foreign language and the ability to understand mathematical notation.
I agree. Not only is this implausible in technical areas - it looks like an extrapolation from current affairs and biography - it is self-defeating there. The whole point of making good surveys, in less technical language and aimed at the 'general reader', is to make an honest reformulation of technical literature by reducing the jargon. The aim is to end up with readable articles, with reliable sources attached. It is not at all clear that the 'general reader' should be assumed competent to compare the originals, in say general relativity, with the formulation given. In fact the more this is insisted upon, the harder it may be to write for wide comprehension.
Charles
----------------------------------------- Email sent from www.ntlworld.com Virus-checked using McAfee(R) Software Visit www.ntlworld.com/security for more information
charles.r.matthews@ntlworld.com wrote:
zero 0000 wrote
- Sarah points out the following text from WP:NOR : "anyone--without specialist knowledge--who reads the primary source should be able to verify that the Wikipedia passage agrees with the primary source. Any interpretation of primary source material requires a secondary source."
That seems to be broken. Examples of specialist knowledge which might be required are the ability to read a foreign language and the ability to understand mathematical notation.
I agree. Not only is this implausible in technical areas - it looks like an extrapolation from current affairs and biography - it is self-defeating there. The whole point of making good surveys, in less technical language and aimed at the 'general reader', is to make an honest reformulation of technical literature by reducing the jargon. The aim is to end up with readable articles, with reliable sources attached. It is not at all clear that the 'general reader' should be assumed competent to compare the originals, in say general relativity, with the formulation given. In fact the more this is insisted upon, the harder it may be to write for wide comprehension.
Right. This is the sort of thing that leads people to conclude that Wikipedia has a bias against experts. Those people who can read and understand highly specialized source _and_ communicate those ideas in language that is accessible to the general reader are the people we need to attract to Wikipedia. The NOR policy section Sarah quoted tells those people that their talents are not valued here.
-Rich
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:42:05 -0600, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
The NOR policy section Sarah quoted tells those people that their talents are not valued here.
The problem here is that we cannot tell the difference between an expert and an "expert", and we don't necessarily know if the editor is pushing a personal agenda.
But access to good academic references and knowledge of how to write a cited paper should allow any genuine expert to contribute authoritatively and without problems.
Guy (JzG)
On 12/19/06, Guy Chapman aka JzG guy.chapman@spamcop.net wrote:
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 14:42:05 -0600, Rich Holton richholton@gmail.com wrote:
The NOR policy section Sarah quoted tells those people that their talents are not valued here.
The problem here is that we cannot tell the difference between an expert and an "expert", and we don't necessarily know if the editor is pushing a personal agenda.
But access to good academic references and knowledge of how to write a cited paper should allow any genuine expert to contribute authoritatively and without problems.
Guy (JzG)
It seems to me that part of this is the way we want to spin this.
Yes, we all agree, we want good experts to come contribute and make highly technical articles better.
No, we don't want to allow anyone including experts to slip unverifyable unreferenced stuff in, because we basically don't know for sure what anyone's qualifications are.
It is likely that in many cases, "anyone" isn't going to be qualified to understand primary or secondary sources. That is probably simply cold reality; as an example, I don't understand much of the math in the advanced physics articles, and less so in the primary sources, despite having had many years of advanced university math.
Policies which are good for soft sciences, history, etc, where anyone generally can read the source and understand it, are probably not a good match for hard ones where even the notations used are domain-specific and arbitrary.
On Tue, 19 Dec 2006 13:43:48 -0800, "George Herbert" george.herbert@gmail.com wrote:
It seems to me that part of this is the way we want to spin this. Yes, we all agree, we want good experts to come contribute and make highly technical articles better. No, we don't want to allow anyone including experts to slip unverifyable unreferenced stuff in, because we basically don't know for sure what anyone's qualifications are.
Exactly. The only way to do it is to have *enough* experts that they can point out the fringe ones when they turn up, and enough non-experts to point out when the article is unintelligible.
Policies which are good for soft sciences, history, etc, where anyone generally can read the source and understand it, are probably not a good match for hard ones where even the notations used are domain-specific and arbitrary.
I have a horrible suspicion that this is a gross oversimplification. I am pretty sure there are areas of Balkan history that require both a substantial amount of background research and a fireproof suit...
Guy (JzG)
George Herbert wrote:
Yes, we all agree, we want good experts to come contribute and make highly technical articles better.
No, we don't want to allow anyone including experts to slip unverifyable unreferenced stuff in, because we basically don't know for sure what anyone's qualifications are.
Precisely. That's why what is said is far more important than who says it.
It is likely that in many cases, "anyone" isn't going to be qualified to understand primary or secondary sources. That is probably simply cold reality; as an example, I don't understand much of the math in the advanced physics articles, and less so in the primary sources, despite having had many years of advanced university math.
Policies which are good for soft sciences, history, etc, where anyone generally can read the source and understand it, are probably not a good match for hard ones where even the notations used are domain-specific and arbitrary.
Yes, if every mathematical step in deriving a theory in physics needs to be explained on the spot in great detail the whole article loses its impact.
Ec