In a message dated 9/19/2010 9:38:37 AM Pacific Daylight Time, peter.damian@btinternet.com writes:
"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)."
Yes I now see the problem :) Ivory tower eggheads who think they have the right now, to talk down to other contributors instead of educating them. If you, as an academic, cannot explain your edit/article/sentence to a person who isn't already an expert in your field, then you simply are too rarified to find a home here at Wikipedia and good riddance, in my opinion.
We don't need *more* huffing and puffing, put-out little boys fingering our project. Articles which can only be understood and thus edited by those with IQs over 165 should probably be consigned to specialist (read read by few) periodicals.
I'll take your one-sentence snipe as abject agreement :)
Will Johnson
----- Original Message ----- From: WJhonson@aol.com To: foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, September 19, 2010 5:48 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Yes I now see the problem :) Ivory tower eggheads who think they have the right now, to talk down to other contributors instead of educating them. If you, as an academic, cannot explain your edit/article/sentence to a person who isn't already an expert in your field, then you simply are too rarified to find a home here at Wikipedia and good riddance, in my opinion.
We don't need *more* huffing and puffing, put-out little boys fingering our project. Articles which can only be understood and thus edited by those with IQs over 165 should probably be consigned to specialist (read read by few) periodicals.
You have made your view very clear. I've tried to be polite, and to avoid any talking-down, and I am sorry if it has appeared that way. You use the collective 'we', meaning you speak for all Wikipedians. To the other Wikipedians here: is there a problem with academics 'talking down'? Do they have a problem explaining their ideas in articles? Are they 'too rarified' to be included in Wikipedia? If so, can Wikipedia do without them? If not, how could they be encouraged to contribute better?
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On 19/09/2010 19:47, Peter Damian wrote:
To the other Wikipedians here: is there a problem with academics 'talking down'? Do they have a problem explaining their ideas in articles? Are they 'too rarified' to be included in Wikipedia? If so, can Wikipedia do without them? If not, how could they be encouraged to contribute better?
I think the wikipedia project is about an universal access to knowledge, not an elitist one. Experts are respected because they have studied deeply, but they *must* be able to transmit this knowledge to have a place in wikipedia, in my opinion. This transmission is about plain and clear explanations of the arguments, of the proofs and of the clusters of hints leading to an interpretation or a conclusion. It's about extracting from dozens of years of experience the main reasoning and sources to be considered. It's about being critical and analytical towards one's own knowledge.
I believe there is no knowledge without understanding and being able to check the sources, and thus there is no universality of knowledge if one needs to pertain to a certain clique to understand something, or if one needs as much experience in the domain as an expert. Any article written by an expert should be understandable to a motivated but first-time reader profane. And I mean understanding in the strong meaning of the word, which knowing why the article is declaring this or that given the references and the arguments.
As for the "expert training" that Peter Damian mention several times, I think it is not convincing per se because a training can as well teach to think critically (i.e., questioning permanently what you know and why you believe it) as to think according to a set of doctrines. So instead of believing experts (or anybody) "because they say so", everyone should document, reference, argument and construct the knowledge put into articles.
Finally, what distinguishes the obscurantism from science is the demand to be open to criticism: any idea is just a proposal (an hypothesis) and its believers must accept discussing it on a epistemological level.
In consequence, the top-down approach cannot be acceptable on wikipedia, at least not as a winning argument. Not out of disrespect, but because universal knowledge cannot follow an initiatic model (i.e., you only understand if you think as dictated by a hierarchy).
These considerations are not limited to the interactions between experts and profanes. Long time editors who feel at home with their pet articles tend to be closed-minded towards newbies and new approaches, in my observations.
Having said that, I think there is a problem with the quality of some articles, even some about hard science, which I interpret, amidst other causes, as due to a lack of rigor with citing primary sources. Without them, the controversies have no tangible common grounds - which is an unsolvable problem -. I think a huge effort should be put in motion to clarify, inspect and distinguish the quality, authenticity and primarity of the sources.
Any new science starts by compiling lists and nomenclatures of its items, which are pieces of knowledge represented by articles in the case of an encyclopaedia. Then it refines its epistemology to build further. Too much undiscriminated information (about a same topic) is just noise. And how to discriminate intelligently other by checking the link of the premises to reality (their veracity and primarity) and the validity of the reasonings?
A few posts back Peter linked to several philosophy-trained editors who had left Wikipedia, representing them as examples of the problems he has identified.
I think it's worth reposting here what one of those editors gave as his reasons for leaving:
[quote]
1. No one is accountable, nor does anyone feel responsible, for the accuracy of Wikipedia articles, since they are unsigned and have no official authors.
2. There is virtually no incentive to work on them.
a. Doing so is extremely time-consuming. People who write traditional encyclopedia articles also expend a lot of time. However, they are typically repaid in one or more of three ways: with money, with recognition or prestige, and with the chance to gently support what they see as the right view of the subject. However: b. One is paid nothing to write or edit Wikipedia articles. c. One gets no recognition or prestige, since the articles are unsigned. d. One gets no chance to forward what one sees as the correct views, because of the NPOV policy. e. Finally, one can't even link to one's own relevant papers on the subject, since there seems to be an unofficial policy to automatically delete such links. So the deal is: spend hour upon hour doing web editing, and you can be sure of getting nothing in return.
3. Genuine experts in a subject are usually people who have other demands on their time--often professors, for example, who could spend their time working with their own students or doing research in their field that they'll get credit for. So just thinking of these factors a priori, it seems unlikely that many experts would contribute to Wikipedia.
4. It's true that if someone sees an error in an article they can fix it. But it's also true that others can introduce new errors. And the people most likely to see errors and not introduce new ones, are the experts who seem to have no incentive to contribute. --owl23211:58, 3 January 2006 (UTC)
[/quote]
So what can we learn from these clearly stated objections, and how do they apply to the general problem of articles in the humanities?
Nathan
On 27 September 2010 15:17, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
A few posts back Peter linked to several philosophy-trained editors who had left Wikipedia, representing them as examples of the problems he has identified. I think it's worth reposting here what one of those editors gave as his reasons for leaving: So what can we learn from these clearly stated objections, and how do they apply to the general problem of articles in the humanities?
This appears to be the objections of someone who thinks an encyclopedia is a journal in the field, or should work like one. As WJohnson has pointed out, Wikipedia is not a venue for academic self-promotion either.
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over experts in whatever topic you're editing. Why are there any experts on Wikipedia?
- d.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 12:38 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
On 27 September 2010 15:17, Nathan nawrich@gmail.com wrote:
A few posts back Peter linked to several philosophy-trained editors who had left Wikipedia, representing them as examples of the problems he has identified. I think it's worth reposting here what one of those editors gave as his reasons for leaving: So what can we learn from these clearly stated objections, and how do they apply to the general problem of articles in the humanities?
This appears to be the objections of someone who thinks an encyclopedia is a journal in the field, or should work like one. As WJohnson has pointed out, Wikipedia is not a venue for academic self-promotion either.
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over experts in whatever topic you're editing. Why are there any experts on Wikipedia?
- d.
I have already pointed out (and you agreed) that Wikipedia requires a different style and approach from the one of, say, the SEP.
Wikipedia is not a venue for academic self-promotion either.
It is supposed to be a comprehensive and reliable reference source.
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over experts in whatever topic you're editing.
There are only a handful of experts on philosophy in Wikipedia, and they are pretty demoralized. When are you going to clean up this mess, David?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age
You said you were going to, some time. Or this one?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Existence
If there are so many experts, why are these articles in such a complete mess? We are not talking about a 'journal in the field'. We are talking about a basic introductory article to a subject which in any comprehensive reference work would be treated with care and respect. Why is there no proper article on Theology? http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theology . And why is this one - a basic subject - such a mess http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_theology ?
Without experts to tell you there is a problem, you aren't going to realise there is one, I suppose.
With every kind wish.
Peter
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Tuesday, September 28, 2010 12:38 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over experts in whatever topic you're editing. Why are there any experts on Wikipedia?
This is very telling. Someone is trying to select Philosophy articles for the Wikipedia 0.8 release.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_Philosophy#Philosoph...
They have left a message on the Philosophy project page which seems to have elicited no response. Now look at the list of articles selected.
http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&namespace=0&pag...
Of the 22 'top importance' articles, 9 are start class, with tags like 'multiple issues', 'clean up', 'attention from expert required' and so on. 9 are C class, many also (e.g. metaphysics) have tags all over the place. 3 are B class (including one I wrote). Only one (philosophy of mind) is FA class, and that was written by a very good editor who has since given up.
Of the high importance, many of these have been wrongly categorised (in some cases, incredibly so).
On 28 September 2010 12:38, David Gerard dgerard@gmail.com wrote:
You can hardly move on Wikipedia without tripping over experts in whatever topic you're editing. Why are there any experts on Wikipedia?
I predict Wikipedia's biology articles will far outshine its philosophy articles for the simple fact that the biologists bother:
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000...
They bothered paying author's fees for publication in a peer-reviewed specialist journal in their field, just to increase the quality of Wikipedia articles in their field. They're hardly going to rack up citation credits for an article on how to teach biology to the general public.
With some fields going to this effort and not others, ultimately it's up to the specialists in the fields themselves to bother. So what do the biologists have that the philosophers - or other fields that are ill-represented in Wikipedia - lack?
(That article is great, by the way. It gives strong reasons for experts to put in the effort to bother.)
- d.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Friday, October 01, 2010 9:43 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
I predict Wikipedia's biology articles will far outshine its philosophy articles for the simple fact that the biologists bother:
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000...
They bothered paying author's fees for publication in a peer-reviewed specialist journal in their field, just to increase the quality of Wikipedia articles in their field. They're hardly going to rack up citation credits for an article on how to teach biology to the general public.
With some fields going to this effort and not others, ultimately it's up to the specialists in the fields themselves to bother. So what do the biologists have that the philosophers - or other fields that are ill-represented in Wikipedia - lack?
(That article is great, by the way. It gives strong reasons for experts to put in the effort to bother.)
So here am I looking for systematic reasons why philosophy, and humanities in general are under-represented in Wikipedia and you are saying that it is because philosophers - and by implication specialists in humanities - don't bother? Interesting. I once got puzzled why certain plants wouldn't grow in my garden. I got frustrated and thought perhaps the plants weren't bothering. Then I found that because my garden is north facing and has acid soil, the plants that like sunlight and don't like acid soil, weren't flourishing.
Anyway David, I said earlier that there are several stages to the process. The first is to see whether Wikipedia does have a problem with the humanities in general. There needs to be a scientific methodology to assess what counts as 'under represented', there needs to be a survey to determine whether certain subjects are under-represented, and perhaps a paper in an appropriate journal. That's step 1.
Step 2 - if the answer to step 1 is that there is a problem - is to determine whether there are underlying reasons (similar to sunshine, acidity of soil) that certain subjects are under-represented. It could be the reason is chance (this seems to be what you are saying, that in certain subjects experts bother, in others they do). If it is not chance, what are the reasons.
Step 3 - is there anything the WMF can do - either directly or by persuading the community - to address the problem.
Peter
On 2 October 2010 07:58, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000... With some fields going to this effort and not others, ultimately it's up to the specialists in the fields themselves to bother. So what do the biologists have that the philosophers - or other fields that are ill-represented in Wikipedia - lack?
So here am I looking for systematic reasons why philosophy, and humanities in general are under-represented in Wikipedia and you are saying that it is because philosophers - and by implication specialists in humanities - don't bother? Interesting. I once got puzzled why certain plants wouldn't grow in my garden. I got frustrated and thought perhaps the plants weren't bothering. Then I found that because my garden is north facing and has acid soil, the plants that like sunlight and don't like acid soil, weren't flourishing.
That's wonderfully poetic and doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
- d.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 9:40 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000...
On the assumption that there is negative answer to Step 1 - namely, there is a serious problem with the content and quality of philosophy articles in Wikipedia (I think you agree that is not in doubt), then the answer is clearly that none of these approaches have worked so far for philosophy, either singly or collectively. Does that answer your question? The answer seemed so obvious that I didn't give it.
I suppose you will reply that it is in some way the fault of the philosophers. This, as I poetically suggested, would be like blaming the plants that didn't like acid soil, for not growing in my garden. I repeat: it is unfair to blame the plants. Find out the problem with the garden or its environment or its soil or whatever, and try to fix that if possible. I found the article here quite helpful
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walled_garden
Wtih every kind wish,
Peter
On 2 October 2010 10:28, Peter Damian peter.damian@btinternet.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific. http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000...
On the assumption that there is negative answer to Step 1 - namely, there is a serious problem with the content and quality of philosophy articles in Wikipedia (I think you agree that is not in doubt), then the answer is clearly that none of these approaches have worked so far for philosophy, either singly or collectively. Does that answer your question? The answer seemed so obvious that I didn't give it. I suppose you will reply that it is in some way the fault of the philosophers. This, as I poetically suggested, would be like blaming the plants that didn't like acid soil, for not growing in my garden. I repeat: it is unfair to blame the plants.
At this point it may be useful to distinguish "fault", "blame" and "agent who could take action." Philosophers are not passive planted creatures, but active human agents who can decide to do something or not.
Your aim (better philosophy articles) might be realised by changing Wikipedia to suit philosophers, but it's reasonably clear from this thread that this is unlikely to happen. This means alternate approaches might be worth considering, to the end of better philosophy articles in Wikipedia.
As such, and in the interest of better philosophy articles on Wikipedia, could you please go through that list and tell me which ones philosophers in particular will balk at? Not just you personally (though that too), but others.
- d.
----- Original Message ----- From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Saturday, October 02, 2010 10:34 AM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
As such, and in the interest of better philosophy articles on Wikipedia, could you please go through that list and tell me which ones philosophers in particular will balk at? Not just you personally (though that too), but others.
The question of which ones of the list philosophers will 'balk at' is quite different from the question of 'what would work' i.e. what would improve the content. Answer: none of them. They are all eminently sensible and desirable. On citation I can remember getting this drummed into me as part of my elementary philosophical training some years ago.
Now: why haven't they worked?
Peter
The question of which ones of the list philosophers will 'balk at' is quite different from the question of 'what would work' i.e. what would improve the content. Answer: none of them. They are all eminently sensible and desirable. On citation I can remember getting this drummed into me as part of my elementary philosophical training some years ago.
Now: why haven't they worked?
Peter
To avoid any confusion here, my point was that:
1. None of the items on this list http://www.ploscompbiol.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pcbi.1000... would be balked at by philosophers. Philosophers already address most of these basic principles in their own work.
2. Equally, none of them, singly or collectively, would in my view address the problem of why philosophy is such a problem in Wikipedia. Philosophers already address most of these basic principles in their own work, and they apply them on Wikipedia. They haven't worked. Philosophy is worse now than in 2005 (2007at the latest).
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it, whereas editors are at least a little hesitant about wading into a subject that clearly requires a specialist vocabulary.
Looking at an area I edit in, animal rights, I'm aware of only two editors in that area since 2004 who have studied ethics at postgraduate level. You don't need an academic background to edit all those articles, but it helps for the articles where the philosophical arguments have to be explained.
One of the editors with a background in ethics was a professional philosopher who specialized in animal rights, and who stopped editing after deciding that "raving loonies" were in charge, as he put it. And the other is me. Expertise in that area is not recognized, because everyone who has ever read a newspaper thinks they understand it. So it is very frustrating, and if it's an area you specialize in professionally, editing those articles feels like a complete waste of time.
Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
This is just one of the reasons I think it will always be harder to recruit and keep philosophers.
on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,
<snip>
Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they think they already know.
Marc Riddell
On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:30 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,
<snip>
Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they think they already know.
Sure you can, if you can just get their attention. This is the basic method behind good instructional and popular writing, as well as such specific genres as biography. You need to provide an especially attractive format and very clear presentation in a manner that implies that the presentation is expected to be entertaining, to get people started reading or listening, and then to keep them going provide intrinsically interesting material and clear dramatic verbal and pictorial illustration, and write or speak in language and manner that is at the right level of sophistication--a slightly better informed friend is usually the right level, and aim at an overall effect when finished that w;il give people a feeling of satisfaction and increased confidence.
It's not easy. Few people can do this really well, and they are only occasionally professional academics. Good advertising people can do it; good journalists can do it; masters of popular non-fiction can do it; some fiction writers can even do it. It may be beyond practical levels of community participation to expect it in Wikipedia, at least on a routine basis. (Though we do have one additional factor--the attractive browsing effect. )
People do change their mind. People can be persuaded. But there are almost no articles in Wikipedia written well enough to could persuade people to pay attention to the arguments. Probably that should not be our goal. for I don't think we can accomplish it by an assortment of amateurs. Probably our basic principle is right:aim for NPOV, for those people who want it. We're always going to be dull reading--even the best professional encyclopedias usually have been. Anything more than that belongs in other media.
on 10/2/10 6:01 AM, SlimVirgin at slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't work for philosophy, in your opinion? Please be specific.
David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it,
<snip>
Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 8:30 AM, Marc Riddell michaeldavid86@comcast.net wrote:
Very well said, SV. I encounter the same thing in my field. You cannot teach someone who will not be taught. You cannot teach someone something they think they already know.
on 10/3/10 4:49 AM, David Goodman at dgoodmanny@gmail.com wrote:
Sure you can, if you can just get their attention. This is the basic method behind good instructional and popular writing, as well as such specific genres as biography. You need to provide an especially attractive format and very clear presentation in a manner that implies that the presentation is expected to be entertaining, to get people started reading or listening, and then to keep them going provide intrinsically interesting material and clear dramatic verbal and pictorial illustration, and write or speak in language and manner that is at the right level of sophistication--a slightly better informed friend is usually the right level, and aim at an overall effect when finished that w;il give people a feeling of satisfaction and increased confidence.
It's not easy. Few people can do this really well, and they are only occasionally professional academics. Good advertising people can do it; good journalists can do it; masters of popular non-fiction can do it; some fiction writers can even do it. It may be beyond practical levels of community participation to expect it in Wikipedia, at least on a routine basis. (Though we do have one additional factor--the attractive browsing effect. )
People do change their mind. People can be persuaded. But there are almost no articles in Wikipedia written well enough to could persuade people to pay attention to the arguments. Probably that should not be our goal. for I don't think we can accomplish it by an assortment of amateurs. Probably our basic principle is right:aim for NPOV, for those people who want it. We're always going to be dull reading--even the best professional encyclopedias usually have been. Anything more than that belongs in other media.
Much of what you say here is true, David. However, the task becomes an arduous one when the students rule the classroom. The prevailing culture in Wikipedia, whose dogma seems to be, "this is our encyclopedia, and no 'expert' is going to tell us what to do", may seem liberating to some, but is preventing the Project from being the truly collaborative one it has the potential to be.
Marc Riddell
----- Original Message ----- From: "Marc Riddell" michaeldavid86@comcast.net To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Sent: Sunday, October 03, 2010 1:04 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
Much of what you say here is true, David. However, the task becomes an arduous one when the students rule the classroom. The prevailing culture in Wikipedia, whose dogma seems to be, "this is our encyclopedia, and no 'expert' is going to tell us what to do", may seem liberating to some, but is preventing the Project from being the truly collaborative one it has the potential to be.
This is so very very true. And you only have to lose it your cool once or twice, and you are out with a block.
Using my earlier 'gardening' analogy I am going to make some suggestions over the coming week. The analogy was a garden where the good plants are struggling to grow, and the place is becoming infested with weeds. Rather than blaming the plants for not growing, a good gardener would apply small changes to help the good plants. For example, trim back a tree that was causing shade. Apply fertiliser (organic of course) in appropriate places. Perhaps (but this may not be neceessary) pull up a few weeds. My experience of gardens is that small changes to the microclimate can make big positive changes to the garden.
Here are some initial ideas - all of them small incremental ones that would involve little or no change to Wikipedia policy or governance.
1. Get someone from WMF or even Jimbo to make a keynote statement about philosophy - perhaps alluding to the problematic state of many of the articles, and the need for editors to collaborate together and help. Something is needed to improve the morale of the remaining editors there.
2. An initiative to highlight 5 "top importance" articles and get them to GA or FA. There are very few FA status articles, compared to the rest of the project.
3. Another initiative to re-classify the top 50 articles in terms of importance and quality (I looked at this and some are wildly out of line).
More ideas next week. Any ideas from the others here?
Peter
Sarah, this goes back to our discussion at en:WP:V a couple of weeks ago -- when it comes to humanities, en:WP doesn't emphasise the need for scholarly sources enough, and instead produces something that is more like a press mirror. This starts a vicious circle.
In de:WP, the [[WP:BLG]] policy (the German equivalent of [[WP:V]]),
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:BLG
states the following:
As a matter of basic principle, scientific sources should be preferred, especially standard works and review articles that are relevant to the subject area in question.
It adds that where scientific sources are not available, or not available in sufficient quantities, other secondary sources that can be considered as having been well researched may be used as well.
It adds that where scientific sources and lay sources disagree, scientific sources should generally be preferred.
I would be interested in hearing from other projects how you handle scientific and journalistic sources!
Now, I do the major part of my work in en:WP, but my impression is that in de:WP, poor humanities coverage is far less of a problem. To provide some anecdotal evidence, the German article on Plato is a featured article that runs to the length of a small book:
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Platon
Socrates is a GA. Philosophy itself is a featured article.
All in all, the WikiProject Philosophy page on the German Wikipedia
http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portal:Philosophie/Ausgezeichnete_Artikel
lists 33 featured philosophy articles, and 62 good articles. (And that appears to be an incomplete list. I will ask the author of the Platon article to have a look at this discussion, perhaps he can add some background.)
In comparison, en:WP has a total of 12 featured articles in the areas of philosophy and psychology *combined*. They are:
Attachment theory · Conatus · Confirmation bias · Free will · Getting It: The Psychology of est · Eric A. Havelock · Philosophy of mind · Hilary Putnam · Reactive attachment disorder · Transhumanism · A Vindication of the Rights of Woman · Bernard Williams
There are 18 English GAs in Philosophy, and they are:
Philosophers: Adelman, Howard – Al-Kindi – Ayn Rand – Eckhart Tolle – Fodor, Jerry – Ramasamy, Periyar E. V. – Ramprasad Sen – Sanger, Larry – Shah, Idries – Sun Tzu – (10 articles)
Philosophies and movements: CrimethInc. – Cynicism – Power: A New Social Analysis – Two-level utilitarianism – (4 articles)
Philosophical topics: Alvin Plantinga's free will defense – Conscience – Consolation of Philosophy – Eliminative materialism – (4 articles)
Eckhart Tolle, Larry Sanger and CrimethInc are not exactly ... how shall I put this ... I shan't bother, you probably guess what I mean.
I do believe the fact that there is less of a culture of scholarly source research in en:WP, and a preference of press sources over scholarly sources, especially in the humanities, impacts very negatively on en:WP's performance in this area.
I accept that en:WP may have the opposite problem in some areas, where editors seek to exclude notable views "because they were not written by scholars", but on the whole I prefer the German system. The level of coverage becomes more serious, more intelligent, and more encyclopedic.
This attracts like-minded contributors. The en:WP culture attracts a different kind of editor, a type of editor who doesn't like scholarly sources very much, making the problem self-perpetuating. Beyond a certain signal-to-noise ratio, knowledgeable people will simply vote with their feet, as your colleague did.
If en:WP wants competent, intelligent coverage in the humanities, it needs to teach editors the value of researching the most competent, most intelligent sources. These are not generally found in the daily press.
Andreas
--- On Sat, 2/10/10, SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com wrote:
From: SlimVirgin slimvirgin@gmail.com Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005? To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" foundation-l@lists.wikimedia.org Date: Saturday, 2 October, 2010, 11:01
From: "David Gerard" dgerard@gmail.com
That [...] doesn't answer the question I asked: *what* about the approach in this paper wouldn't
work for philosophy,
in your opinion? Please be specific.
David, I think one of the reasons that biologists and others may be happier than philosophers to edit Wikipedia is that everyone assumes they know something about the latter and don't need to study for it, whereas editors are at least a little hesitant about wading into a subject that clearly requires a specialist vocabulary.
Looking at an area I edit in, animal rights, I'm aware of only two editors in that area since 2004 who have studied ethics at postgraduate level. You don't need an academic background to edit all those articles, but it helps for the articles where the philosophical arguments have to be explained.
One of the editors with a background in ethics was a professional philosopher who specialized in animal rights, and who stopped editing after deciding that "raving loonies" were in charge, as he put it. And the other is me. Expertise in that area is not recognized, because everyone who has ever read a newspaper thinks they understand it. So it is very frustrating, and if it's an area you specialize in professionally, editing those articles feels like a complete waste of time.
Academics don't have the time or patience to explain basic points for years on end to people who feel that reading books or papers about the subject is unnecessary. I'm sure the biology experts would give up too if their area of expertise were undermined in such a basic way.
This is just one of the reasons I think it will always be harder to recruit and keep philosophers.
Sarah http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:SlimVirgin
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On 10/2/2010 8:59 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
I do believe the fact that there is less of a culture of scholarly source research in en:WP, and a preference of press sources over scholarly sources, especially in the humanities, impacts very negatively on en:WP's performance in this area.
I believe this is twin to the common problem in English Wikipedia culture of an inappropriate bias against sources that are not written in English, or not readily findable online (and often both apply). Given that English is much more of a lingua franca in the sciences than in other disciplines, it should not be surprising if this leads to inferior coverage in the humanities.
--Michael Snow
On Sat, Oct 2, 2010 at 21:08, Michael Snow wikipedia@frontier.com wrote:
On 10/2/2010 8:59 AM, Andreas Kolbe wrote:
I do believe the fact that there is less of a culture of scholarly source research in en:WP, and a preference of press sources over scholarly sources, especially in the humanities, impacts very negatively on en:WP's performance in this area.
I believe this is twin to the common problem in English Wikipedia culture of an inappropriate bias against sources that are not written in English, or not readily findable online (and often both apply). Given that English is much more of a lingua franca in the sciences than in other disciplines, it should not be surprising if this leads to inferior coverage in the humanities.
I would say that the roots of the problem lay in the bias of the methods of humanities rather than in something inherent to Wikipedia. Unlike in science, just [not all] top scholars in humanities have enough exact methodology. The rest are using various types of mystification to support their own myths. And building knowledge database in open and collaborative manner is mostly in collision with their interests.
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