I've given some thought to what Larry, Lee, Jimbo, Karl, and others have said about the need for experts in the free encyclopedia movement, and I'd like to try to synthesize some of that info, and throw in a couple of thoughts of my own.
It seems to me that there is some disagreement about a number of issues.
First, the need for experts. IT seems to me that Larry's statement that we need more expert input in the "free encyclopedia movement" elicited three responses.
1) The kind of expertise needed to write good encyclopedia articles on the subject of economics is different than the kind of expertise needed to get a PhD in economics. 2) Motivated and reasonably well educated armatures can become "experts" at writing encyclopedia articles. 3) It would be easy to drive away motivated armatures by courting "experts" in the wrong way.
I don't know whether or not Larry agrees with these three caveats. But I suppose it doesn't matter as he's left the decision making process in our hands. I certainly think the above three points are all true, and it seems like we have some consensus on this. That said, I also agree with Larry that we should work hard to gather subject matter experts into the "free encyclopedia movement," as long as we take the above the above caveats into consideration.
To that end I think we really should consider some ways to help make the free encyclopedia movement expert friendly. Larry's suggestion that we work hard at reviving an Nupedia like project, which would be open to experts only, so the experts can be protected from the trials and tribulations of the wikipedia process -- is only one proposal and I think we should explore a wider variety of options.
Basically, what I'm saying here is that if Larry's basic thesis is, "We need to DO SOMETHING to attract experts," we're stuck debating side issues. The real question (and I do think it is an open question) is: "Do we need to do something to attract experts?" As I said earlier, I tend to think the answer is: "Yes, but we need to be careful not to do the wrong thing."
I'd suggest that we start out with some very basic things: inviting experts to get involved, intentionally looking for experts who do get involved and working hard to make their entrance into the wikipedia community enjoyable, cultivating an atmosphere of congeniality and respect for experts and motivated amateurs alike.
Perhaps just doing that regularly for a couple of years will be enough, but perhaps not...
-- Mark Christensen
On Sat, 07 Sep 2002 09:22:07 Mark Christensen wrote:
I'd suggest that we start out with some very basic things: inviting experts to get involved, intentionally looking for experts who do get involved and working hard to make their entrance into the wikipedia community enjoyable, cultivating an atmosphere of congeniality and respect for experts and motivated amateurs alike.
This poses the question: how do we invite experts to get involved? I've often thought of approaching, say, Barry Jones (former Australian politician, quiz champion, author of several reference works, and general smarty-pants) to contribute, but how to pose the invitation in such a way as to make it sufficiently inviting?
My current thoughts are thus:
1) Make sure we have completed short articles on all the Australian Prime Ministers, for example. 2) Write him a note (and send it to him by snail-mail, because a) it's probably easier to find a snail-mail address than email, and b) the effort expended might demonstrate that we're serious, inviting him to review those articles and comment - and point out that if he wishes, he can simply edit them online. 3) Watch and see what happens.
The key points are: a) That there is something already there I can point him to, so he can see that contributing would be useful. b) Get the idea that he can contribute directly, with no extra effort, in sideways.
Barry Jones I've picked on as a likely case because he was writing books about a free public network as an information repository back in 1980, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.
What do you think?
At 10:45 AM 9/7/02 +1000, you wrote:
On Sat, 07 Sep 2002 09:22:07 Mark Christensen wrote:
I'd suggest that we start out with some very basic things: inviting experts to get involved, intentionally looking for experts who do get involved and working hard to make their entrance into the wikipedia community enjoyable, cultivating an atmosphere of congeniality and respect for experts and motivated amateurs alike.
This poses the question: how do we invite experts to get involved? I've often thought of approaching, say, Barry Jones (former Australian politician, quiz champion, author of several reference works, and general smarty-pants) to contribute, but how to pose the invitation in such a way as to make it sufficiently inviting?
My current thoughts are thus:
- Make sure we have completed short articles on all the
Australian Prime Ministers, for example. 2) Write him a note (and send it to him by snail-mail, because a) it's probably easier to find a snail-mail address than email, and b) the effort expended might demonstrate that we're serious, inviting him to review those articles and comment - and point out that if he wishes, he can simply edit them online. 3) Watch and see what happens.
The key points are: a) That there is something already there I can point him to, so he can see that contributing would be useful. b) Get the idea that he can contribute directly, with no extra effort, in sideways.
Barry Jones I've picked on as a likely case because he was writing books about a free public network as an information repository back in 1980, but I'm sure there are plenty of others.
What do you think?
I think it's a good idea. After I wrote the page on Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson I was looking at his web page and dropped him a note about Wikipedia.
No answer, and I don't suppose he even logged on, but never hurts to try.
Fred
wikipedia-l@lists.wikimedia.org