----- Original Message -----
From: "Andreas Kolbe" <jayen466(a)yahoo.com>
To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List"
<foundation-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2010 1:48 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
(1) demanding subject matter, requiring some
familiarity with the topic
area to be able to contribute effectively
(2) the relative scarcity of editors who have prior knowledge in these
areas.
So "throwing more editors at the Humanities problem" through a WikiProject
may not work in this case. Getting students and academics involved might.
Agree with this. Let's throw in a further reason: there are positive
*disincentives* to editing Wikipedia in this area. Here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Owl#Wikipedia.27s_accuracy_and_credi…
I know the philosopher who wrote this: well-regarded in his area of
expertise, and has made positive contributions to Wikipedia. Read the
reasons he gives. He stopped contributing in 2006. Or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Mel_Etitis#My_attitudes_to_Wikipedia_.28a…
by another well-regarded philosopher, also an administrator. Stopped
editing in 2007. Or this
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:Nsalmon
Salmon is a highly respected philosopher, who edited under his own name. He
left, saying "I would strongly urge you to leave the editing of articles
concerning philosophy and/or philosophers to genuine experts. You simply
lack the understanding and expertise required to assess whether an edit is a
genuine improvement or an obvious and cowardly sniper attack (as with the
insertion in question)." Note further down I tried to persuade him to stay
(as I have done with a number of academic philosophers). I haven't
succeeded with any of them. One of them was incredulous that I should want
to persist with it. "Hello! I've just stumbled across the latest episode in
your peculiar relationship with this Sisyphean project. I still don't
understand why you bother. "
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User_talk:Peter_Damian&diff=p…
.
Or here "This article [analytic philosophy] is typical Wikipedia on
philosophy -- an accumulation of wildly uneven contributions by diverse
hands. (Interestingly, the quality generally goes south the farther the
article progresses.)"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:Analytic_philosophy&diff…
.
Or the person who emailed me last week saying " really need help to do a
rewrite of
[[X]], which is a terrible mess, and I posted on theWikiproject philosophy
page knowing I'd almost certainly get no response. There are so few people
with philosophy training on WP that
we literally can't afford to lose a single one".
I could find plenty more like that. Summary: it is not a matter of
"rounding up" potentially interested editors who have the necessary
expertise. It's not that there is no incentive, it's that there is a strong
disincentive. Note that most of the professional philosophers who have
edited Wikipedia, stopped editing between 2005-7, which bears out the point
I am making that something bad happened during that period. "My basic
attitude remains unchanged, but as Wikipedia becomes more popular, more and
more an more people are using it to advertise/puff themselves or their
friends. There are therefore more genuinely unencyclopædic articles
being added now"
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=User:Mel_Etitis&diff=prev&…