[WikiEN-l] Does openness dull the bleeding edge?

[stevertigo]

--- charles.r.matthews at ntlworld.com wrote:

> "David Gerard" wrote
> 
> > OTOH, I've often wondered if setting up an academic wiki would be
> > something to attract people. 
> 
> The concept is probably sound. The trouble would be that academia values
> (over-values, we might say) the expert in a strictly delimited area. So where would
> the good syntheses come from? 

Well, assuming this was the right way to go to begin with (as opposed to soem kind of
trust metric heuristic) the synthesis of academic and public energy would come from
simply giving academics some measure of status - a science gateway for example.
Note that this is something that would be disastrous if applied to non-science
articles. Anything in the social sciences should be regarded as just below the cutting
point, etc. 

Ultimately the idea is something meritocratic and not just credentialist; something
open and yet somewhat heirarchical; something integrated with the same data, and not
segregated. 

sv.






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