[WikiEN-l] An expert's perspective - Tim Bray on editing the XML article

[Abd ul-Rahman Lomax]

At 08:18 PM 8/11/2009, you wrote:
>On Tue, Aug 11, 2009 at 12:36 PM, David Gerard<dgerard at gmail.com> wrote:
> > 2009/8/11 Steve Summit <scs at eskimo.com>:
>
> > As someone commented on his blog, one of the problems is that the
> > experts in an area are likely to have been very heavily involved in
> > it.
>
>Also biased by that involvement towards a particular mindset,
>especially when it comes to speculative or cutting edge or
>controversial work.

Bingo. I've started recommending a new approach to experts. Most 
experts, especially professionals (which includes academics), have a 
conflict of interest, and when they don't, their expertise still 
represents some kind of commitment to a field. In fringe fields, 
experts on one side may have a bias toward rejection of the entire 
field, they may even have an emotional reaction to it, and on the 
other side, experts are almost certainly a bit attached. In my 
current field of interest, Cold fusion, experts on the state of the 
research, who know the literature, have put many, many hours, many 
years, often, into it, with the interest being almost suicidal, 
professionally. You don't do that because you think it is all a 
stupid mistake. (Very many of the expert researchers have been 
"graybeards," past retirement, with no more concern about tenure, etc.)

Simple: anyone who claims expertise, automatically consider COI, 
which means that they don't edit articles controversially. It's 
great, fantastic, even, if they write an article, or helpfully 
correct it, but not if they own it.

*However,* we need and should want the *advice* of these people, on 
all sides. If we welcome experts from a majority POV in a field, and 
exclude experts from a minority POV, we will create a bias in the 
arguments and sources being presented and discussed and almost 
certainly in the article. While there are experts who will point us 
to toward sources that appear to contradict their own POV, these are 
pretty unusual. (For an example with Cold fusion, there would be Nate 
Hoffman, A Dialogue on Chemically Induced Nuclear Effects, 1995; 
unfortunately, 1995 is ancient history with Cold fusion, but he's 
very, very good about what was known then, and rigorously fair. He, 
quite correctly, presents the whole thing as an unsolved puzzle, with 
contradictory evidence, even though he is certainly skeptical, as one 
should be by default about something like cold fusion.)

Experts will often be uncivil toward people who ignorantly question 
them. If allowed to edit the article, they easily imagine that they 
OWN it, and they will revert "nonsense." But nonsense -- if added in 
good faith -- represents a lack of understanding of the topic, and if 
the article were ideally written, the reader would likely understand 
the topic! Significant objections to what the article says would 
largely be covered, instead of what happens too often, suppressed as 
"undue weight." In talk, *less significant objections* would be 
covered in a FAQ. We have asserted and have sometimes enforced the 
idea that we don't discuss the *topic* in Talk, but that perpetuates 
the problem. I agree we should not discuss the topic on a Talk page 
for an article, but we should either set up a place to do that (I'm 
sure that if there are editors and experts working on a standard 
encyclopedia article, traditionally, there is some discussion of the 
topic!, or we should point to a good discussion forum, and, if there 
is controversy in a field, to the best forums on all sides. Some 
articles do this; in others, minority POV forums have been excluded 
as "fringe." But they could be covered in a FAQ as a place to get 
more information and to learn about the topic. If an editor does not 
understand the topic, they become only slaves to the experts, when, 
in fact, the editors stand for the public and should insist that the 
topic is explained to *them* so that they can understand it from the 
article itself, and not from being berated by an expert or another 
editor who dislikes seeing an expert challenged!

So: if an editor claims expertise -- and that should be encouraged! 
where it exists-- the editor would, on the one hand, be more strictly 
excluded from controversial edits to the article, but would, on the 
other, be protected to a degree from severe sanctions for 
"POV-pushing" -- don't we expect that from COI editors? -- or 
incivility. That doesn't mean that we allow them, for example, to be 
uncivil, no, we might short-block them quickly, if they do not 
respond to warnings, but we would explain that we respect their 
expertise and we want them to advise us. Civilly, please, and thanks. 
Now, that it's quieted down, and you have perhaps apologized for 
calling that editor a moron, and you will try to refrain from this in 
the future, I'm unblocking you. Remember, morons are people too, and 
our job is to educate the ignorant, not insult them. If you need 
help, here is how to get it ....

I have become, in the last six months, from having a decent 
background in physics, buying the books (skeptical and accepting of 
its reality) -- which I never did before to research a Wikipedia 
article -- come to have a certain level of what I'd call "amateur 
expertise." Therefore I should be considered COI and should not edit 
the article in a controversial way. However, I ''should'' participate 
in Talk, because I can serve as an interface between true experts -- 
we are lucky to get them, and at least two in this field have been 
banned -- and editors with less familiarity. My job is to help the 
neutral editors understand the sources, and I should not pretend to 
be neutral. Real experts are rarely neutral, they have strong 
opinions which they believe to be Truth -- at least many of them -- 
but if we come to see our job as facilitating an *informed 
consensus*, we will serve the goals of the encyclopedia even if we do 
"push" a POV.

If my Talk page participation is a problem, the problem should be 
directly addressed. There are ways, simple ones. I know, because I 
successfully advise and mediate between other editors with articles 
where I have no involvement.