[WikiEN-l] Anti-intellectualism

[George Herbert]

On Thu, Dec 11, 2008 at 7:43 PM, Thomas Larsen
<larsen.thomas.h at gmail.com> wrote:
> On 12/12/08, David Goodman <dgoodmanny at gmail.com> wrote:
> [snip]
>> Scholarship in the arts is not  primarily "opinion", but analysis
>> based on study of the primary sources, the same fundamental approach
>> used on all other subjects.
> [/snip]
>
> You're right--and I guess this issue brings us down to the fundamental
> rhetorical question asked by Larry Sanger: does Wikipedia tolerate
> academic(s| opinions)? The answer tends to be no--because some people,
> who tend to be the most vocal people and ironically seem to have the
> most time on their hands, have got it into their heads that years of
> study don't help someone to become more knowledgeable and to produce
> better scholarship.
>
> Perhaps there's an underlying issue that needs to be solved here.
>
> --Thomas Larsen

There are conflicting issues here.

On one hand, there is anti-elitism / anti-intellectualism present in
some corners of Wikipedia.  When found it should be Burned with Fire.

On the other hand, numerous academics have failed miserably to engage
with Wikipedia on our terms - which is NOR, RS, etc.  "Because I said
so" is no more valid for a Professor than for Joe 6-pack... The
professor is more likely to be correct, but he's no more verifyable
when he says that, and we have no way of knowing if the Professor
really is who he/she claim they are.

I've had good luck by asking academics to think of this as another
place they have to provide references and supporting citations, and
asking them to think of this as a general interest publication rather
than as a research journal... write survey overviews, etc.

I will happily ask an academic who stubbornly Just Doesn't Get the
need for references and citations to publish somewhere else.  This
does not make me anti-intellectual.  It makes me pro-encyclopedic.
Some academics are not cut out for writing general overview articles /
textbooks / talking to the public about their work.  They generally
fail in Wikipedia, too.


-- 
-george william herbert
george.herbert at gmail.com