[WikiEN-l] A future for Nupedia?

[Jens Ropers]

On 10 Sep 2004, at 16:52, wikien-l-request at Wikipedia.org wrote:

> Message: 8
> Date: Fri, 10 Sep 2004 15:25:56 +0100 (BST)
> From: Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk>
>
> Can we put aside the specific issue of academia, for a moment, and 
> deal with
> the more general concept of "experts"? I'd like to address one specific
> instance: would you object to requiring at least one expert to review 
> an
> article, in addition to laymen? (Let's make the non-trivial assumption 
> that
> experts exist and are identifable by some means).

Just to clarify myself: I don't have a problem with academics/academia.
IMHO it's the dichotomous distinction between "experts" and 
"non-experts" that's at the root of the problem, not the issue whether 
we're talking about academics or other "experts".

Traditional knowledge review works as follows:
1. A person demonstrates an ability to consistently produce non-trivial 
knowledge work.
2. This leads to the possibility of that person being awarded "expert" 
status (traditionally in the form of academic accreditation.)
3. Once expert status is attained, the person's views are valued 
''more'' than the views of persons who (for whatever reason) have not 
also become "experts".
4. This implicit credence of "experts" is rarely ever revoked and 
[[appeal to authority]] arguments are frequently made.

This system has the advantage (or disadvantage) that an expert rarely 
has to justify his/her views to "non-experts".
If also has the massive disadvantage that it tends to lead to the 
exclusion of an enormous amount of valid input. Some "experts" ''do'' 
happily take on board input from all comers, but even with them, most 
laymen don't dare contacting them.

Traditionally, it was very difficult to imagine a working alternative 
to the "expert/non-expert"-approach to the "authoritative 
knowledge"-problem.
I believe we now have the tools to do things better. We don't need the 
dirty shortcut of recognizing (or affording anyone our own) 
"expert"-labels. Because everybody is an expert to some degree. All we 
need is a sufficiently disciplined, self-policing and workable forum of 
peer review. Our future review system could work as follows:

We keep editing like we've always done, but going forward, we consider 
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ the "unstable" branch.
As mav and myself have proposed, we create a stable branch 
http://en.wikipedia.org/stable/.

We form a "review club" with the following membership criteria:
- A non-trivial edit history that
- demonstrates constructiveness and
- an ''ambition'' to work towards the NPOV.
A person's supposed "knowledge level" should NOT be a criterion (see 
below).

Membership in the review club should be open to everybody but will have 
to be applied for. Once the above criteria are met, membership should 
be granted to any comers.
The review club would not edit. No editing would take place on the 
stable branch. The job of the review club would only be to determine 
whether "wiki" versions can be promoted to "stable". If an article 
needs editing, the review club would say so on the talk page. Review 
club members could edit ''in their other role of being regular 
contributors'', but these edits would be treated ''the same as any 
other contributor's edits''.
The discussion in the review club should be more disciplined than in 
other Wikipedia fora, but here, too, no appeals to authority should be 
permitted. Every argument will have to stand on it's own merit. But: 
laymen may find it harder to convince others, because of what they 
don't know (not because of what accreditations they don't possess). 
Review club members would need to be very aware of their limits and 
they should clearly say when they don't feel qualified enough to make a 
judgment on an article. This is where the review club ''could'' also 
solicit outside opinions, but only if the review club ''agrees'' it 
lacks the relevant knowledge to do the work alone. When soliciting an 
outside opinion, the outside person should be able to convince '''by 
merit of an explanation, not by merit of their title''' (where s/he has 
one). Crucially, if no-one in the review club understands the 
explanation given by the outside person, the said input should be 
disregarded.

This should neatly avoid the pitfalls associated with a fallacious 
appeal to authority ("reverse ad-hominem" ;-) .

To remain workable, the review club could split into different working 
groups as it grows, such as:
- a molecular biology group,
- a car mechanics group,
- a soap opera group,
etc. etc.

Where necessary, the groups could appoint moderators on a rotating 
basis (or elect them for limited terms). Here too, a moderator's main 
job would not be "being an expert who can overrule people", but "being 
a moderator who can facilitate and sum up the group's consensus". If 
required, the entire review club could have a "grand moderator" as 
well.

The Wikipedia has come far.
 From a previous email I wrote:

>> The Wikipedia will continue to be successful as long as we continue 
>> to attract more well-intended contributors than malicious folks.
>>
>> If well-meaning users make a mistake and/or persist in a 
>> misconception, then it's possible to have a (sometimes admittedly 
>> heated) discussion about it and straighten things out. Well-intended 
>> but erring users we can deal with and convince. Only "trolls", people 
>> who genuinely WANT to sabotage the system do present a real threat. 
>> Fortunately most people in the world are well-meaning. The fewest 
>> people in the world actively want to do something wrongful. 
>> Misguided, perhaps, but not actively trying to be wrongful. 
>> Misguided, we can deal with. We can convince or vote down such people 
>> as long as they are well-meaning. Wrongful, we have to labour 
>> against. Either way: in our system, the majority wins. So again, as 
>> long as we can attract more reasonable people than maniacs, as long 
>> as we can do that, we'll be successful.

We have every reason to believe that the same principle would work in a 
review club. Because most well-meaning people will recognize their own 
limitations and not claim to be an "expert" of medical imaging when 
they really haven't got a clue. Malicious imposters will be noticed 
very quickly because they cannot trow the weight of a (fake or actual) 
title around -- and their explanations will rarely be cogent. And 
that's all we need.

-- Jens [[User:Ropers|Ropers]]
     www.ropersonline.com