[WikiEN-l] Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia

[Geoff Burling]

On Sun, 12 Sep 2004, Daniel Mayer 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.

Mav, either you misread me, or I failed to communicate my point properly.

I spoke of 2 qualities: expertise & willingness to "play nice". My conclusion
was to state that I value the willingness to "play nice" over expertise --
if forced to choose. In the vast majority of cases, we aren't faced with
such a stark 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).

That was my point, too.
>
> 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.

[snip]

Okay, I was talking about Academics in general on Wikipedia. (And I suspect
now I'll be hearing from the academics currenting busy contributing to
Wikipedia.)

Last time I ventured my two cents concerning the print Wikipedia, the response
I got led me to conlcude that there was no support for forking Wikipedia even
in the slightest to make the content more acceptible -- which is what any
approval board would end up doing. Then the project seemed to go into
hibernation. Then it seemed that a group was working on it. Now it appears
we are back to discussing what should be done.

I'm withholding further comment until it's clear (well, at least to me)
what is going on with this version of Wikipedia. I'm just as happy as anyone
to opine about something, but I'd rather work on the print version of
Wikipedia than be one more voice in this neverending discussion. (And those
who are doing the work will most likely appreciate the lowered noise level.)

Geoff