[Foundation-l] The 'Undue Weight' of Truth on Wikipedia (from the Chronicle) + some citation discussions

[Mike Christie]

On Wed, Feb 22, 2012 at 7:05 AM, Thomas Morton <morton.thomas at googlemail.com
> wrote:

> Realistically *we are all part of the problem*. You, me, etc. because the
> problem is the entire ecosystem. Even stuff we think is polite and sensible
> might be incomprehensible to a newbie. Simple things like linking to, or
> quoting, parts of policy instead of taking time to write a simple
> explanation. The use of templates. The resistance to listen to arguments.
> It all adds up into a confusing user experience.
>
> This is not a new problem; many online communities suffer, and have
> suffered, from it.
>
> All of the things I mentioned are useful once your dealing with editors
> aware of the workings - it's not "new and scary" at that point and acts as
> a useful shortcut to streamline our interaction. The key thing to work on,
> I think, is easing newbies into that process without bombarding them with
> too much of it at once.
>

This is part of the reason why I have been advocating that the education
programs take an active role in encouraging the academics who teach classes
on Wikipedia to become contributors themselves.  If we can provide
high-quality one-on-one mentoring to academics in the workings of Wikipedia
we could increase the percentage of users who have a foot in both worlds.
 Editors without subject matter expertise will always be needed but to
solve some of the problems on Wikipedia, particularly those regarding undue
weight and comprehensiveness of coverage, we have to attract experts and
help them become editors.

Mike