On 29 August 2010 17:18, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
In the case of newspapers probably yes. In the case of encyclopedias, I think not. There are severe problems with the Wikipedia coverage of philosophy which you wouldn't find here, for instance. And so for the humanities generally. When I make this point on Wikipedia, the answer is usually that Wikipedia is for pop culture, whereas encyclopedias are for 'proper culture' or 'high culture' or whatever. I don't really understand this distinction.
The answer is probably that we're not finished yet and need more participation from people interested in writing encyclopedically in the area.
Basically, the answer is interested contributors bothering to put in the effort, same as any other area. Hard work over the course of years, as usual.
There are things that could be done. Professors who set students to editing can help the content along very nicely. Getting the Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy released under CC by-sa would increase the quality of the world's phiosophy knowledge nicely (it's not like it's a commercial website).
Think of our successful areas and why they are successful. Our hard science articles are generally excellent, and sometimes almost readable by humans. Why are they good? Why did people with the requisite knowledge bother writing stuff up? How can we duplicate this in other lacking areas?
- d.