[WikiEN-l] UIC Journal: Evaluating quality control of Wikipedia's feature[d] articles

[Delirium]

On 04/19/2010 10:46 AM, Nathan wrote:
> I wonder if there might be a subtle bias playing into these reviews.
> Perhaps if reviewers begin with the assumption that the article was
> written by amateur hobbyists, that influences the outcome. If Lindsey
> went back to them and let them know that the articles had been written
> or comprehensively reviewed by recognized experts, would that alter
> the results?

It's an interesting question, but I think it might influence their 
description more than their actual opinion, i.e. that if they knew it 
was written by a PhD in their field, they would phrase their 
disagreement differently, but might still not like the article. Some of 
these comments are almost exactly the comments a survey article will 
typically get in peer review! Almost nobody likes the survey article 
that someone else has written: it invariably over-emphasizes unimportant 
issues, under-emphasizes the key issues, is missing important results in 
the field, includes results of questionable reliability, etc.

(Happens with textbooks, too; almost everyone has a gripe about how the 
standard textbook in their field misrepresents things.)

-Mark