[WikiEN-l] Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia

Matthew Larsen mat.larsen at gmail.com
Sun Sep 12 22:20:57 UTC 2004


This is all well and good, having a review board and experts stuff and all...

But is it really necessary?


On Sun, 12 Sep 2004 15:16:37 -0700 (PDT), Daniel Mayer
<maveric149 at yahoo.com> wrote:
> --- Geoff Burling <llywrch at agora.rdrop.com> wrote:
> > In short, if faced with choosing between an expert who does not care to
> > conform to the Wikipedia way (by which I mean is willing to engage in
> > give-&-take in the writing of material) & a non-expert who is willing
> > to learn & "play nice" with other contributors, I would choose the
> > latter. And I hope I am not alone in this preference.
> 
> You explained the strengths and weaknesses extremely well, but your conclusion
> is based on an either/or choice. I very firmly believe that this is not an
> either/or choice and that we should leverage the strengths of both against
> their weaknesses (I too have come across PhD's - in print and in person - who
> espouse nearly crank theories).
> 
> So a particular subject area approval board may decide to have one or more
> experts read an article along with one or more non-expert but trusted
> Wikipedians who are self-taught in the topic area. Each person reading the
> article would grade the article based on whether or not it covers its topic
> area well, is a fair treatment (presenting important but non-mainstream views
> with the appropriate detail and caveats), and whether or not there are obvious
> errors of fact.
> 
> Each would have *equal* veto power over not approving the article by giving it
> a sub-standard grade in any of several different categories. Conflicts of
> judgment will have to be worked out among the judges.
> 
> Rather egalitarian, no?
> 
> -- mav
> 
> 
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-- 
Matthew Larsen
   > mat.larsen at gmail.com
   > 07739 785 249



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