[WikiEN-l] Citizendium

[Jussi-Ville Heiskanen]

On 9/19/06, Kim van der Linde <kim at kimvdlinde.com> wrote:
>
>
>
> Suppose I am doing a Ph.D.
> study, and want to become a expert in a field. What is nicer than to
> work with some experts in that field to create good quality articles. To
> many people seem under the impression that Citizendium is written solely
> by experts, my impression is that the bulk of the work is still done by
> many authors together, with a major difference that only a 'finalised'
> version is approved and visible for the larger public. Just imagine that
> a group of people works together adding a new page that do not have to
> fight with POV-pushers of fringe or bullshit ideas (expert guidance) and
> vandals (not approved, no reward for vandalism), while at the same time
> can benefit from the expertise of those same experts to get towards a
> much better article as those experts do know the literature much better,
>   know which [[WP:V]] [[WP:RS]] to use (no blanket criteria needed
> anymore). Furthermore, an added incentive would be that quality
> contributors are being recognized by those experts, which results in
> better working relationships, but also more praise and feedback....

This is precisely the way I have seen things work well over 99% of the
time on wikipedia. If on a given article it does not, I give it my
honest best effort if I think conciliation has a reasonable shot, but
if not, move on to another part of the pedia, where people are quietly
and collegially working, just in the manner as you describe above; bar
the fact that on wikipedia the *natural* deference to people who know
what they talk about, has not become a deference to *graven emblems*.
(Although,  I will admit the hierarchicism fetishizers are always at
the gate.)

-- 
--
Jussi-Ville Heiskanen, AKA. Cimon Avaro

Candidate for Board of Trustees of the Wikimedia Foundation in the
September 2006 elections.