[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

[Peter Damian]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <WJhonson at aol.com>
To: <foundation-l at lists.wikimedia.org>
Sent: Monday, September 20, 2010 8:14 PM
Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?



> However I again submit that in Wikipedia, you are not an "expert" because
> you have a credential, you are an expert because you behave like an 
> expert.
> When challenged to provide a source, you cite your source and other 
> readers
> find, that it does actually state what you claim it states.

> However it seems to me that you'd perhaps like experts to be able to make
> unchallengeable claims without sources.

It depends.  On the Salmon talk page 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:Nathan_Salmon , Salmon writes, quite 
correctly "the demand for citations to substantiate what are uncontroversial 
and widely known facts (e.g., about the writings of Kant or Quine, etc.) is 
excessive".  One huge weakness of Wikipedia is the way that every trivial 
claim is festooned with citations.  An expert would understand which facts 
are "known to those who know" and which aren't.  Please note that I followed 
up later with "Nathan, this is perfectly well-known among philosophers but 
Wikipedia is a general interest encyclopedia and a reference would be 
helpful".  Just so you see where I am coming from.

Another weakness is that, as I have remarked here 
http://ocham.blogspot.com/2010/06/avicennian-logic.html it is easy to 
circumvent the 'citation laws'.  "The editor always provided reliable 
sources for their claims. However, examination revealed either blatant 
misrepresentation of the source, or a selective interpretation that went far 
beyond the author's meaning. For a long time no editors bothered to check 
these. The problem was amplified by his frequent use of scholarly works not 
available on the internet. Most of Wikipedia's editors are amateurs who have 
no access to a university library. Thus they cannot check a source from a 
journal, or an old or obscure book that would only be found in a library. 
Typical of his technique is this edit where he claims that "Avicenna 
developed an early theory of impetus, which he referred to as being 
proportional to weight times velocity, which was similar to the modern 
theory of momentum" citing Aydin Sayili (1987). "Ibn Sina and Buridan on the 
Motion of the Projectile", Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences 500. 
Yet the source attributes the theory to the fourteenth century French 
philosopher Buridan, not Avicenna. People trust Wikipedia because they 
believe the system of 'anyone can edit' allows for cross-checking and 
verification of references by a large group of users. Clearly, they should 
get out of this habit."  Note that most of this rubbish is still there: it 
would take a huge task force to clear it up.

> If I'm wrong in that last sentence, then tell me why being an expert is 
> any
> different than being any editor at all.

I didn't use the word 'expert' in the post you quote, except in scare 
quotes.  The difference is the training in how to use citations properly 
(which most Wikipedians in my view do not understand at all), in being able 
to summarise appropriately, in being able to provide cogent and coherent 
evidence for a statement instead of blind ranting, of organising an article 
in a way that threads the information into a coherent whole, rather than a 
laundry list, and so on.  As well as quite basic stuff like not using commas 
in strange ways, not attaching adjectives of one sort to nouns of another 
(this is a very common error - I bet I could find one in any Wikipedia 
article > 20 words that you selected at random).

> I can read a book on the History of the Fourth Crusade, and adds quotes to
> our articles on the persons and events, just as well as an expert in that
> specific field.

If this 
http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Margaret_of_Hungary&oldid=383882577 
is anything to go by, the answer is, no you can't. Sorry :(

With every kind wish.

Peter