[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[SlimVirgin]

On Mon, Oct 4, 2010 at 09:34, Nathan <nawrich at gmail.com> wrote:
> Perhaps because of some popular caricatures of the subject of
> philosophy, even those who choose to edit philosophy articles may not
> appreciate the actual expertise involved in being a trained
> philosopher.  Philosophers, and philosophy in general, are treated
> with less respect than other academic subjects and experts.
>
I don't think that happens in the Humanities, but scientists do seem
to ignore that philosophers deal with many of the issues they claim
for themselves.

> As for solutions -- we've discarded identifying credentialed experts
> or privileging expert contributions over others in some systematic
> manner. Peter has proposed involving Jimmy in a sort of publicity
> campaign, but even if this succeeds in attracting more experts to
> Wikipedia it doesn't solve the underlying problems driving experts
> away.

A related issue, Nathan, is that Wikipedians sometimes don't realize
they're editing a philosophy article. I don't want to give examples,
because I don't want to personalize things. But I've had the
experience of trying to use academic philosophy sources in philosophy
articles, or in sections of articles that touch on philosophical
issues, and they've been removed as inappropriate or UNDUE, with
questions on talk about why I think this is a topic in philosophy --
that philosophy is just one POV among many, and not in any sense
authoritative in that area.

I tend to give up in the face of this, rather than argue, because it
feels pointless.

Sarah