-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- Hash: SHA1 The premises: 1. I just had a short chat with [[Erik Orsenna]], a member of the [[Académie française]] who "loves to learn and pass along knowledge". He's also interested in the adventure of knowledge and in the democratic processes and appreciate being able to tap into the knowledge of the five french Académies he has access to. I asked him if he was aware of Wikipedia and of its participative nature. He did. I asked him why the Academicians didn't participate more and share their knowledge on it. He said that they have no time, that they're busy writing their books. 2. In parallel, I had several conversations with university Professors showing their reticence, distrust or hostility about the free encyclopedia. They discredit the articles when speaking to their students. 3. High level physicists also stay away from it. (for example most of the theoretical information about [[quasars]] comes from the 1960's. Current information on the net is frequently only available through pay-to-read sites.) The interpretation: It seems that the traditional way of handling knowledge is treating it as a good, that is, a resource with a monetary value and ownership. One invests money, time and efforts to obtain it. People who made a career out of it want to recover their costs and make benefits out of it. Some like the prestige of their exclusive knowledge or the authority it confers. The consequences: A. Some feel threatened by the wikipedia model. They don't want it to succeed. They perceive it would question their role, their power and their way of earning money. B. An expert who has synthesized after 40 years of dedicated studies most of the knowledge of his specific domain that is known to humanity will transmit it to a few persons only each year: a few dozens of students, a few dozens of other experts, and a few thousands of passionate readers who buy the vulgarization book. Thus, knowledge is controlled, reserved, limited, slowed down. It will take decades or centuries before the best of what we know reach everybody. The consequences if it were to change: With wikipedia, any expert could reach and teach millions of persons. In ten or twenty years, every literate person with internet access could use an interdisciplinary, edge-cutting database of knowledge for their diary reasoning. The knowledge and understanding of mankind could make giant leaps. Concluding: I think it is important to think how many of the intellectual profession don't collaborate and why. We should search if mechanisms involving the wikipedia and that would benefit their research are possible. We should even think economical models about knowledge that allow the profession to change, in the same way that it is happening with the free software, copyleft, Creative Commons and other alternative models.

Yes, this is what we are up to, with or without help from experts. Fred

The traditional academic system is based upon status differences between pupils and teachers. One of the problems is the reception they get--a great many experts do not take it kindly when they are challenged by the ignorant, and get no respect for their qualifications, or even negative comments about them. But there is no way of keeping WP open and preventing them from being subjected to this. It affects not just academic experts, but experts in all sorts of fields and knowledgeable amateurs also. Some experts can deal with it well, and a few have been known to go for years on WP without mentioning their academic status. Some have the art of explaining things to make them clear to anyone who is not willfully misunderstanding, and the patience to do it. These are the kind of people we need. Alas, the one's who cannot tolerate the fools are probably never going to be able to work effectively in a WP environment. On Fri, May 28, 2010 at 7:16 PM, Noein <pronoein(a)gmail.com> wrote: -- David Goodman, Ph.D, M.L.S. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User_talk:DGG

On Sat, May 29, 2010 at 12:21 AM, Keegan Peterzell <keegan.wiki(a)gmail.com>wrote;wrote: Aye, there is a group who will never really be able to fit in (I generally think of them as the "elitist" side of the academics but that isn't really the best way to describe them I think). I do think that there are a lot who aren't really engaged who could be brought in though. Other then the "elitism" group I think most of the other problems they have can at some level be overcome by showing them the opportunities and benefits. The Public Policy Initiative that the Foundation is starting sounds like a great idea to get some thoughts on how to do this (both helping to incorporate the grad and undergrad students but also the profs by showing them exactly how much it can do). In the end however we are going to have to be able to expand it to other disciplines and find good ways for us to do it on a larger (and more volunteer run) scale. There was an interesting point that I saw a couple weeks ago (I think it was in the Initiatives State 1 report, perhaps it was just in the description on OutreachWiki). Basically it was talking about who had the most time to edit. Undergrads had the most, Grads and Professors tended to be more focused on academic papers/books for work reasons and then the Retired Professors had more time again. I think we could still get a fair amount of Grad students and active Professors but the Retired/Emeritus Professors would be another good group to try and target (and one I believe that will be less focused on by the current Initiative) I know we have some, but there are tons more out there ;). James Alexander james.alexander(a)rochester.edu jamesofur(a)gmail.com

David Goodman wrote: You describe an attitude that has taken centuries to build up. Those who learned through deference teach deference. At best it will take several generations to overcome. The intolerant ones can easily be there because of their own inability to communicate their ideas. They may be brilliant researchers, but hopeless at explaining their results. Ec