[WikiEN-l] Why Academics are Useful to Wikipedia

[Jens Ropers]

> Date: Mon, 13 Sep 2004 16:46:43 +0100 (BST)
> From: Matt R <matt_crypto at yahoo.co.uk>
>
> So, if the Review Club has sufficient expertise, it reviews the 
> article itself.
> If it feels unqualified, it solicits outside expertise. Forgive me if 
> I've
> butchered the intent of your post, but this sounds pretty close to a
> requirement for expert knowledge to me.

(Reference:
http://mail.wikipedia.org/pipermail/wikien-l/2004-September/030521.html 
)

We positively DO want to get all the *expert knowledge* we can get. 
However we should NOT make the mistake of thinking that the only way we 
could get hold of *expert knowledge* was formally installing accredited 
experts and giving them more power than the next guy. I'm getting 
hoarse saying it, but: The idea is that all input should prevail by 
it's own merit and NOT by merit of the person contributing it holding a 
degree (=evidence of prior achievement). Letting EVERY contribution 
prevail on its own merit will be MORE likely to lead to superior 
results.

YES to *expert knowledge*.
YES to having people in our midst who ''could theoretically'' be 
regarded as "experts".
NO to actually calling them "experts". (It would introduce bias, eg. it 
would intimidate some contributors who might have something useful to 
say and would choose to censor themselves because of false awe.)
NO to expressly installing "experts". (They will come automatically.)
NO to designating anyone an "expert" and
NO to associating privilege with such labels. (It would lead to less 
scrutiny, because the "expert's" words would no longer have to prevail 
on their own merit.)
"One man, one vote" will suffice.

YES to an ''additional option'' to seek outside help:
Only where the collective consensus of the review group gets to be that 
the group doesn't know enough, then seek help from outside experts. 
With this step, and ONLY with this step (and only as a last resort) the 
relevant review board ''could'' also look for academic degrees to for 
guidance of who might be competent. This last resort only becomes 
necessary when seeking outside help -- and that's because the outside 
world is not engaged in a Wiki process whereby it is possible only to 
look at the actual merit of "what was said". Using the "who said 
it"-principle when looking for outside expertise is a crutch, no doubt. 
But it's the "next best thing" to the Wiki process and it may be the 
only option left outside of the Wikisphere.

> Moreover, a weakness of this system is
> that the Review Club could easily make a mistake and not realise when 
> it has
> insufficient expertise -- people generally dislike admitting their 
> limitations.

An individual person might be tempted to oversell him/herself. Yet, 
because we're looking at a group of people engaged in a process as 
complete peers, that danger is minimized.

> It seems much better to me to have mandatory input from some expert 
> with
> evidence of his or her achievement.

NO.
See above.

> -- Matt (User:Matt Crypto)

Thanks and regards,

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