[WikiEN-l] Citizendium hits 5000 articles

[Ian A Holton]

On Wed, 2008-01-23 at 22:07 +0000, Thomas Dalton wrote:
> On 23/01/2008, Steven Walling <steven.walling at gmail.com> wrote:
> > I'd agree with charles comments above, but let me rephrase my observation.
> >
> > Citizendium has, in my opinion, an infinitely larger potential for
> > maintaining its current systemic bias, unlike wikipedia, which is constantly
> > correcting this (see things such as User:llrwych's recent devotion to the
> > history of Ethiopia and the like). The very nature of the cz project and its
> > base of contributors demands a bias in the topics it gives substantial
> > coverage to.
> >
> > Start with intellectual and personal elitism, and you're going to have that
> > bias show in your work, just like academia. Also just like academia, this
> > bias doesn't negate the value of the work they do focus on, but you still
> > have to acknowledge that there will always be holes in their coverage.
> 
> If I'm understanding you correctly, you're talking about the lack of
> English speaking experts on topics about non-English speaking
> countries? I'm not sure how serious an issue that is - most academics
> anywhere in the world speak decent English, if they look for them, I'm
> sure they can find suitable experts of Ethiopian history, or whatever.

Certainly, one would only have to look at specialist universities, for
example my own the [[School of Oriental and African Studies]] in London.

IMHO, Wikipedia should - at some point - do a recruiting drive for
academics to get more involved with specialist subjects.

Ian [[User:Poeloq]]
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