On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 09:34, Nathan <nawrich(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Perhaps because of some popular caricatures of the
subject of
philosophy, even those who choose to edit philosophy articles may not
appreciate the actual expertise involved in being a trained
philosopher. Philosophers, and philosophy in general, are treated
with less respect than other academic subjects and experts.
I don't think that happens in the Humanities, but scientists do seem
to ignore that philosophers deal with many of the issues they claim
for themselves.
As for solutions -- we've discarded identifying
credentialed experts
or privileging expert contributions over others in some systematic
manner. Peter has proposed involving Jimmy in a sort of publicity
campaign, but even if this succeeds in attracting more experts to
Wikipedia it doesn't solve the underlying problems driving experts
away.
A related issue, Nathan, is that Wikipedians sometimes don't realize
they're editing a philosophy article. I don't want to give examples,
because I don't want to personalize things. But I've had the
experience of trying to use academic philosophy sources in philosophy
articles, or in sections of articles that touch on philosophical
issues, and they've been removed as inappropriate or UNDUE, with
questions on talk about why I think this is a topic in philosophy --
that philosophy is just one POV among many, and not in any sense
authoritative in that area.
I tend to give up in the face of this, rather than argue, because it
feels pointless.
Sarah