In my opinion, university degrees are no guarantee for quality. I've seen so many uninspiring mediocre academics (not all of them are like that of course) that it makes me question todays education system. So let's play safe and limit editorship to Nobel laureates.
Another point: let us say several tens of thousands of articles qualify for "Wikipedia Professional". The screening will be a huge undertaking, but it can be done. But after that, how often will people be willing to go through the whole certification process again and again in order to approve possibly small additions and corrections? Probably not too often. This will lower the movation of wikipedians to contribute to the "Wikipedia for Dummies". Their efforts will be unseen and not appreciated by the general public once the Pro Edition is a fact.
I am not against freezing articles to deal with random troll droppings. I am vehemently against an elitist approach. It blows the whole concept. How many wikipedians have university degrees right now? Probably quite a few. How many of those concentrate on their field of expertise? My guess is: a lot less. Wikipedia is a hobby, even experts want to take a break from their daily work every now and then, and Wikipedia provides this. So many of these experts will be in fact amateurs when working on Wikipedia. This is guesswork of course. My point: if amateurs have accomplished so much already, it would be a disgrace to make them second rank members.
Erik Zachte
On 28-07-2003, Erik Zachte wrote thusly : [snip]
I am not against freezing articles to deal with random troll droppings. I am vehemently against an elitist approach. It blows the whole concept. How many wikipedians have university degrees right now? Probably quite a few. How many of those concentrate on their field of expertise? My guess is: a lot less. Wikipedia is a hobby, even experts want to take a break from their daily work every now and then, and Wikipedia provides this. So many of these experts will be in fact amateurs when working on Wikipedia. This is guesswork of course. My point: if amateurs have
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ How about doing an anonymous survey of Wikipedia editors/contributors on meta.wikipedia.org ? It might be interesting and possibly helpful to know who we are, what are our attitudes and motivations.
accomplished so much already, it would be a disgrace to make them second rank members.
Regards, Kpjas.
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