[WikiEN-l] Wikipedia Leadership (was NY Times article on gender gap in Wikipedia contributors}

[Mark]

On 2/3/11 11:59 AM, Carcharoth wrote:
> On Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 4:04 PM, Andreas Kolbe<jayen466 at yahoo.com>  wrote:
>
>> The next ten years of Wikipedia should be about multiplying the number of
>> real-life scholars and experts participating. The Ambassadors program is a
>> good start. Once the demographics change, the rest will follow; and until
>> the demographics change, all the talking will avail nothing.
> This is an excellent point. Though you may get some angst from those
> already present who may feel pushed out as they see the culture of
> Wikipedia changing (think how hard it has been for some of those
> present from the very beginning, or near the beginning, to adapt over
> the last ten years). How to manage such change is an interesting
> problem.

It's important to make sure we do maintain the aspects of Wikipedia's 
culture that have made it work, though. I'm a professor in my day job 
(though I was an undergrad when I became a Wikipedian), and I don't see 
academia and academic experts as holding all advantages, though they/we 
do do well in the having-a-lot-of-domain-knowledge arena.

What about Wikipedia's culture actually led to an encyclopedia being 
written, with a lot of good information, and a fairly neutral tone for 
the most part? That's something Nupedia didn't succeed in, and on the 
second point is something even most academic-press books don't succeed 
in--- the median overview book on a subject sneaks in quite a bit of 
opinion and original research, and sometimes even digs at academic 
opponents if the editors let them get away with it, which is why you 
can't really read an academic book without *also* reading a few 
journals' reviews of it.

-Mark