In a message dated 9/20/2010 12:02:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time, peter.damian@btinternet.com writes:
In my experience the problem of humanities in Wikipedia is that the methods and training of
the 'experts' is so fundamentally different from that of 'Wikipedians' (who by and large have no training at all) that disputes nearly always turn ugly. >>
You are again stating the problem as expert vs pedestrian (untrained at least).
However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an "expert" because you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an expert. When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other readers find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.
However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make unchallengeable claims without sources.
If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is any different than being any editor at all.
What is the actual procedure by which, when an expert edits, we see something different than when anyone edits.
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
The problem comes, imho, when "experts" add claims that are unsourced, and when challenged on them, get uppity about it.
The issue is not uncited claims, or challenged claims. All of our articles have uncited claims and many have challenged and yet-unfulfilled claims. The issue is how you are proposing these should be treated differently if the claim comes from an "expert" versus a "non-expert", isn't it?
So address that.
Will Johnson
Will, I suspect the problem may often have to do with due weight. To judge due weight, you need to have an overview of the literature, not a single source that states what you want to add to the article.
It is the same problem in climate change articles, where editors that have no overview of the scientific literature may insist that the Telegraph blog they have just read must be prominently featured.
--- On Mon, 20/9/10, WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
From: WJhonson@aol.com WJhonson@aol.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Monday, 20 September, 2010, 20:14 In a message dated 9/20/2010 12:02:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time, peter.damian@btinternet.com writes:
In my experience the problem of humanities in Wikipedia is that the
methods and training of
the 'experts' is so fundamentally different from that
of 'Wikipedians'
(who by and large have no training at all) that disputes
nearly always turn
ugly. >>
You are again stating the problem as expert vs pedestrian (untrained at least).
However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an "expert" because you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an expert. When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other readers find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.
However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make unchallengeable claims without sources.
If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is any different than being any editor at all.
What is the actual procedure by which, when an expert edits, we see something different than when anyone edits.
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
The problem comes, imho, when "experts" add claims that are unsourced, and when challenged on them, get uppity about it.
The issue is not uncited claims, or challenged claims. All of our articles have uncited claims and many have challenged and yet-unfulfilled claims. The issue is how you are proposing these should be treated differently if the claim comes from an "expert" versus a "non-expert", isn't it?
So address that.
Will Johnson _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
----- Original Message ----- From: WJhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 8:14 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an "expert" because you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an expert. When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other readers find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.
However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make unchallengeable claims without sources.
It depends. On the Salmon talk page http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nathan_Salmon , Salmon writes, quite correctly "the demand for citations to substantiate what are uncontroversial and widely known facts (e.g., about the writings of Kant or Quine, etc.) is excessive". One huge weakness of Wikipedia is the way that every trivial claim is festooned with citations. An expert would understand which facts are "known to those who know" and which aren't. Please note that I followed up later with "Nathan, this is perfectly well-known among philosophers but Wikipedia is a general interest encyclopedia and a reference would be helpful". Just so you see where I am coming from.
Another weakness is that, as I have remarked here http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/avicennian-logic.html it is easy to circumvent the 'citation laws'. "The editor always provided reliable sources for their claims. However, examination revealed either blatant misrepresentation of the source, or a selective interpretation that went far beyond the author's meaning. For a long time no editors bothered to check these. The problem was amplified by his frequent use of scholarly works not available on the internet. Most of Wikipedia's editors are amateurs who have no access to a university library. Thus they cannot check a source from a journal, or an old or obscure book that would only be found in a library. Typical of his technique is this edit where he claims that "Avicenna developed an early theory of impetus, which he referred to as being proportional to weight times velocity, which was similar to the modern theory of momentum" citing Aydin Sayili (1987). "Ibn Sina and Buridan on the Motion of the Projectile", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 500. Yet the source attributes the theory to the fourteenth century French philosopher Buridan, not Avicenna. People trust Wikipedia because they believe the system of 'anyone can edit' allows for cross-checking and verification of references by a large group of users. Clearly, they should get out of this habit." Note that most of this rubbish is still there: it would take a huge task force to clear it up.
If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is any different than being any editor at all.
I didn't use the word 'expert' in the post you quote, except in scare quotes. The difference is the training in how to use citations properly (which most Wikipedians in my view do not understand at all), in being able to summarise appropriately, in being able to provide cogent and coherent evidence for a statement instead of blind ranting, of organising an article in a way that threads the information into a coherent whole, rather than a laundry list, and so on. As well as quite basic stuff like not using commas in strange ways, not attaching adjectives of one sort to nouns of another (this is a very common error - I bet I could find one in any Wikipedia article > 20 words that you selected at random).
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
If this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=3838... is anything to go by, the answer is, no you can't. Sorry :(
With every kind wish.
Peter
Peter, resorting to ad hominem does nothing to prove your point. It only makes people less likely to listen to what you have to say.
-m.
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
If this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=3838... is anything to go by, the answer is, no you can't. Sorry :(
With every kind wish.
Peter
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On 09/20/2010 11:38 PM, Mark Williamson wrote:
Peter, resorting to ad hominem does nothing to prove your point. It only makes people less likely to listen to what you have to say.
That was not ad hominem.
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 12:41 PM, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
----- Original Message -----
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
If this http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=3838... is anything to go by, the answer is, no you can't. Sorry :(
----- Original Message ----- From: "Mark Williamson" node.ue@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 10:38 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Peter, resorting to ad hominem does nothing to prove your point.
Ad articulum
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=3838...
Various grammatical/stylistic errors, laundry list, discontinuity of tense, 1066 style, etc. I brought it up because Johnson was insisting that someone without formal training in the humanities could write an article just as well as someone with formal training.
Peter
On 09/21/2010 09:10 AM, Peter Damian wrote:
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=3838...
Various grammatical/stylistic errors, laundry list, discontinuity of tense, 1066 style, etc. I brought it up because Johnson was insisting that someone without formal training in the humanities could write an article just as well as someone with formal training.
So it may not be well-written, but you don't say that it's incorrect, which is the most important.
On 09/21/10 12:10 AM, Peter Damian wrote:
Various grammatical/stylistic errors, laundry list, discontinuity of tense, 1066 style, etc. I brought it up because Johnson was insisting that someone without formal training in the humanities could write an article just as well as someone with formal training.
Of course his statement is correct. Grammar and style are matters of form, not content.
The risk is that the amateur will fall into common errors and traps, and will lack overall perspective. The risk for the expert is that he stops questioning the assumptions that underpin his opinions.
I agree that the demand for quotes is often excessive. Editors have too often felt the need to defend the accuracy of Wikipedia, so much so that they themselves are insecure about the whole project. They end up striving for an impossible perfection.— a common ailment of geeks and gifted children.
Yes, every subject area has its canon of orthodox texts to which the reader can be directed if he wants further information. Concepts that are consistently treated across a number of such texts should not need detailed identification. Listing several such texts in a bibliography allows the reader to choose the reference work that is most available to him.
Precise references are more important when a claim deviates from or adds to the standard text.
The problem of access to old obscure works and journals remains. The challenge then is to make the obscure material more available to keep people from falling into recentism.
Ec
--- On Tue, 21/9/10, Ray Saintonge saintonge@telus.net wrote:
The problem of access to old obscure works and journals remains. The challenge then is to make the obscure material more available to keep people from falling into recentism.
Old obscure works are often available with a full preview in google books, Wikisource et al. It's amazing how much you can find online these days.
A.
Imho the problem is much deeper than citing sources or lack of them.
The wikipedian may cite newspaper X, or even researchpaper Y, but because he has limited inderstanding and/or knowledge about the field, he may misinterpret the source or judge its weight in much more absolute terms than the real expert does.
Errors may be very subtle. I have seen an edit war between a wikipedian and an expert, where the admin protected the incorrect version of the wikipedian against the changes made by the expert. Motive of the admin: the changes mthis guy makes are not in wikipedia style. And if he thinks there are any errors he should point them out. The expert was fed up with the situation.
Sad but true.
Having some basic knowledge of the subject, I was able to spot two of the five errors introduced by "rewriting the text so that it is easier to read", the other three are probably still there.
teun spaans
On Mon, Sep 20, 2010 at 9:14 PM, WJhonson@aol.com wrote:
In a message dated 9/20/2010 12:02:43 PM Pacific Daylight Time, peter.damian@btinternet.com writes:
In my experience the problem of humanities in Wikipedia is that the methods and training of
the 'experts' is so fundamentally different from that of 'Wikipedians' (who by and large have no training at all) that disputes nearly always turn ugly. >>
You are again stating the problem as expert vs pedestrian (untrained at least).
However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an "expert" because you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an expert. When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other readers find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.
However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make unchallengeable claims without sources.
If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is any different than being any editor at all.
What is the actual procedure by which, when an expert edits, we see something different than when anyone edits.
I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that specific field.
The problem comes, imho, when "experts" add claims that are unsourced, and when challenged on them, get uppity about it.
The issue is not uncited claims, or challenged claims. All of our articles have uncited claims and many have challenged and yet-unfulfilled claims. The issue is how you are proposing these should be treated differently if the claim comes from an "expert" versus a "non-expert", isn't it?
So address that.
Will Johnson _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
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