--- Andre Engels andreengels@gmail.com wrote:
And even where NPOV is concerned, an expert is much more useful than just someone off the street. A non-expert POV-warrior will easily blow away a non-expert NPOV-fighter, simply because he is the one who has read at least something about the subject. An expert POV-warrior will have a much harder time fighting an expert NPOV-fighter.
And that is why we have a dispute resolution process. RfC is used to expose a conflict to a wider audience. That increases the chance that other NPOV-minded and at least semi-knowledgeable people get to voice their view and add their contribution. If that gets the attention of an expert in the field, then all the better (so long as that person adheres to NPOV). And you incorrectly assume that the non-expert POV warrior knows more than the non-expert NPOV-minded person or group (if the later are really in the right, then they will garner more support in the end and win).
I think there's a large area between "valuing feedback" and "giving the last word". It would be worthwhile to explore it. And it would be worthwhile to make a decision whom we DO give the last word.
We should not show special deference to any one person or group of persons. That is a recipe for disaster since credentials are easy enough to fake and are often used as weapons by POV-pushing experts (there are many and egos are HUGE in academia) against non-experts.
That said, I do think that we should encourage greater participation by experts in Wikipedia. We could do this through the 1.0 selection process; experts would be needed on any subject-area selection board along with non-expert subject area enthusiasts (both sub-groups would have *equal* power in version selection).
Maybe it should be our problem. Maybe we should be listening to what others see as problems with our methods, rather than closing our ears and shouting how great it is. Wikipedia is great, but that should not stop us from trying to find ways to make it even better.
What we need to focus on is the *product* - methods are a means to an end. Some in academia don't like our methods since it knocks them out of their ivory towers, but the real question is; "how good is the actual product (not just the perception of it)."
For a four year old encyclopedia, I'd say that our product is exemplary (and at least the German version has been shown to be so in an independent study). But we can and should do more (Wikipedia 1.0/versioning) and not just rest on our laurels.
I'm all for continued improvement, I'm not for killing the goose that laid the golden egg.
-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)
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