[WikiEN-l] A future for Nupedia?

[Delirium]

Patrick Aiden Hunt wrote:

>I know this may seem to some to be a silly question, but why do you need
>someone with academic credentials reviewing articles? Any normal
>encyclopedia simply uses a basic bibliography and the information in the
>article is from books that are written by experts who have academic
>credentials already recognized. If we had people simply cite sources for
>information, then it seems like we would have to worry much less about
>the reviewers' credentials.
>
>I mostly contribute to articles regarding U.S. Supreme Court cases and
>legislation, so all I have to do is cite the actual opinion or portion
>of the U.S. Code. But I imagine if I were contributing to an article on
>another academic field I am interested in (such as Economics), I would
>simply cite Adam Smith's "Wealth of Nations" or Keynes' "The General
>Theory of Employment, Interest and Money" or whatever economic treatise
>the particular theory or concept came from. I would think it would make
>little sense to have an academic scholar waste time signing off on the
>article if all the reader would have to do is check the text that the
>information comes from to ensure it's accuracy.
>  
>
Well, a big problem is how to present information accurately and not in 
a misleading way, and simply citing sources gives no guarantee of that.  
I could cite all sorts of Supreme Court decisions and give a very 
misleading view by not citing particular ones I should've cited, or only 
citing obscure portions of well-known decisions, and so on.  This can be 
done either maliciously or because the author wasn't familiar with the 
wider context so knowledgeable about what to cite.

I agree academic credentials aren't a magic bullet, but I do think 
review of the _article_ itself, rather than merely requiring sources, is 
necessary.  Given maybe a dozen books on the subject of global warming, 
for example, I could write an article taking almost any point of view 
and have plenty of citations to back it up (even if I let you choose the 
books!), but not all of these articles would be equally reliable.

-Mark