[Wikipedia-l] Re: Why the free encyclopedia movement needs to be more like thefree software movement

[Michael R. Irwin]

Larry Sanger wrote:
> 
"There aren't many bona fide experts, leaders in their fields,
> involved in Wikipedia right now."  For example, I am not a bona fide
> expert about much of anything or leader in any of my "fields."

What precise criteria would you assert demonstrates a bona fide expert?

> 
> (3) My contention is that, for Wikipedia to succeed, we need experts
> *guiding* the *free encyclopedia movement* (notice the key words).  

I notice *guiding*.  It has been my experience that bona fide experts
are best employed in what they excel at.   Are you proposing we find
some expert project managers, executives, project team leaders, 
negotiaters, technical writers, etc.?  If so, then they could apparently
apply some expertise proposing *guidance* for the community's
ratification.

> What I *am* saying is that, in the long run, unless a lot of experts are
> involved and unless there is a process that holds *some* portion of the
> free encyclopedia movement (not Wikipedia) up to extremely high standards,

The existing standards are as high as any individual chooses to apply.

I found the standards at infanticide extremely rigorous.  In fact, I
have not yet found an independent credible source to support strong
claims that some of us wish to make there.

> the overall project won't succeed in producing a credible encyclopedia.

Credible to who?  Specific criteria can be useful in discussion.

> In some cases this might be because no one but an expert would be able to
> write (or rewrite) an article on a topic properly.  In many more cases, it
> will be because no one but an expert will be able to edit, supervise, and
> otherwise whip into shape articles on subjects that many nonexperts think,
> but mistakenly, they can write adequately about.  There are many such
> subjects, at least if we want to compare ourselves to actual reliable
> encyclopedias.

O.K.  Name a few subjects that defy writings by anyone except
the leading world authority on the subject.

I contend that by the time someone is acknowledged a leading world
authority on anything specific; there is sufficient written material
available for the subject to be understood by most who choose to
study it.

Some of the leading authorities is even more certain.  Multiple
authorities acknowledged implies more writings and communications
and more people exposed to them in order to certify more people
as leading experts.

It is insufficient to assert the Einstein (or the equivalent) is the 
best physicist of his generation and that only he can guide an 
effort to write about general relativity.  By the time he has convinced
enough other physicists that his theories are correct there are quite
a few people around who have reviewed and written about them in various
forums.   These "mediocre" people are presumably good enough to 
contribute to quality articles at Wikipedia if they can get published
in Scientific American, National Geographic, etc. or reproduce 
empirical results confirming the theory, or recalibrate clocks in
orbital spacecraft, or read any of the above and understand it.

> 
> (4) I should have known better than not to spend at least a couple more
> paragraphs explaining that I do not have a fetish for formal
> qualifications.  I agree absolutely completely 100% that it is totally
> possible for people who lack any sort of formal qualifications to write
> (and edit and code) wonderful creative works of all sorts.  I also agree
> that this is at the heart of the success of the open source movement.

Apparently I was confused.  I thought you said that the secret of 
their success was the prevalence of highly qualified and credentialed 
people *guiding* their important successful projects.

> But that mere possibility doesn't mean that we don't need a lot of experts
> *guiding* a quality control process that Wikipedia benefits from. 

Likewise, the mere possibility that leading authorities can be
invited to come be in charge does not mean that we need *guidance*
to achieve a high quality product.

What specific benefits to Wikipedia from a *guided* quality
control process at Nupedia do you project as possibilities?

The current Wikipedia community process appears to me to implement
a process that could be modeled by control theory and shown to be
tending to converge towards excellence ... apparently without any
pre-emptive guidance by acknowledged experts.   The process seems
well evolved to accept participatory input as it is available at
whatever level whenever it is provided.

If the above is sustained, then as long as some experts show up
interested in contributing to specific topics, and the pool of 
contributors continues to diversify (or rotate) then the local
article quality will continue to rise as will the aggregate.  Indeed,
one could argue that with the evolutionary approach that has evolved
the process can be *unguided* as long as the community does not
fall below regenerative thresholds.  It must be able to collaborate
with (train) newcomers, accomplish maintenance exceeding damage
accrued by casual contributors and vandals, interact a bit within
the long standing ranks, and do a little original fact checking
or editing.  There may exist size thresholds where the overall
quality of Wikipedia would drop until the reliable community of
contributors grew back to previous levels and where the community
would collapse rather than regenerate.

 Part of
> the irony in my title was precisely this point: the open source movement
> is full of all sorts of people with relatively few formal qualifications,
> and no one cares.  But, IN FACT, the movement in general is guided by
> people who are a lot more expert in coding than the average Wikipedian is
> about what he or she writes about (and that couldn't be otherwise, given
> its success).  There's nothing paradoxical about this--and it doesn't make
> the free software movement into a cathedral rather than a bazaar.  It's a
> bazaar *guided* by expert coders.  Kind of (but not entirely) like the
> stock market, a more or less free market, being guided by Wall Street
> gurus.

The free software movement is shaped by evolutionary pressures, not
*guided*.  Successful Wall Street gurus do not manipulate or guide the
market as a whole (this activity is extremely localized in space time,
successful "experts" get out before getting caught) they stay out of its
way.

The local community has managed to develop a culture that embraces
some rules and procedures which tend to evolve better material 
from good faith participation in the community commons, the Wikipedia.
Additional participation, not *leadership* or *guidance*, will emulate
and enhance past success.

Are you aware that many free/open projects start as a means of
studying a language or computer science concept of interest to
the initiator?   Much of the expertise is developed on an as
needed basis.  I find it hard to believe, given this fact, that on
average the expertise at project initiation that is applicable
to the problem at hand is higher that the expertise available at 
twikification for a typical contributor at Wikipedia.  Contributors
at Wikipedia can apply their entire applicable expertise to 
small twikification opportunities and the content is immediately
and visibly improved.  A similar level of effort in a complex
software component is likely to introduce bugs or break it
entirely.  Several iterations may be required before actual
visible improvement occurs.   Combine this with the fact that
Wikipedia contributors can simply pass when uncertainty occurs
regarding the potential improvement, the article does not require
"fixing" before it can be compiled and evaluated by the next
potential contributor.  Clearly Wikipedia's articles should 
improve faster with fewer iterations than free software components.


> 
> (5) I am not heralding the doom of Wikipedia, Daniel M., nor did I say (or
> mean to imply) that what Wikipedia does is futile, and I'm sorry if I
> wasn't clear about that.  In fact, I think that, eventually, Wikipedia
> *will* get the loose direction (by example) it needs, by becoming an
> independent part of an open encyclopedia movement that includes an (also
> independent) expert-staffed review board.  Part of the purpose of my post
> was to help move the movement in that direction.

We need to establish groundwork so that academia or Nupedia can take
full credit for Wikipedia's success?

You have not established to my satisfaction that your proposed 
leaders are intended to provide guidance in how to improve our
existing successful processes.  Currently anyone can (and does) read
or review any article.  There is substantial expertise being applied
to constructive criticism on talk pages and in editing improvements.
This is improving both content and editorial collaborative skills.

It appears to me that you are saying we absolutely must have old
style endorsement by those at the top of the academic pyramid.
This makes the material magically acceptable to readers too lazy
to critically assess and establish for themselves the credibility
of the material presented.

Wikipedia is being assembled by a process that deletes mistakes
as it finds them.   Readers are encouraged to learn scholastic
research, review, and critiquing methods suitable for civilized
interaction with other contributing editors and readers.  One of
the Wikipedia products is already critical readers.  Do I believe
this? Is the reliability adequate for my purpose 
or should I check on it?  Is is consistent
with my prior beliefs or sources?  If it is not verifiable or
consistent with other sources how much do I trust it?

There are two major methods of quality management and control
used in the modern industrialized world:

1.  One hundred percent inspection.  Defects are corrected
or thrown away.    This method is preferred when dealing with
potentially expensive endeavers.   Nuclear reactors, space
shuttles, ballistic missiles, traffic lights, etc.

2.  Improve the production process and use statistic sampling
to drive process improvements.   This is used where productivity
and quantity manufactured makes it cost prohibitive to use
100% inspection.  ICs, machine bolts, automobiles, etc.  

3.  The two are effectively combined by the economy on an ad
hoc basis to suit local economic requirements.
i.e.  Land Rovers or Snow Cats are extensively overhauled and 
inspected before setting out in redundant convoys across the 
Sahara or the Antarctic.  Individual high quality components
and initial integration were probably manufactured subject to 
method 2 above.

Apparently rather than challenging the reader to think critically
and assess the material for themselves (as Wikipedia currently
does) you propose an easy immediate jump in credibility 
(percieved reliability?) by being able to cite leading 
authorities directing or guiding the assembly of the material, 
rather than self improving contributing readers.  

You contend that only the advertised guidance of these 
authorities will lend the process or the product any 
credibility with specialists and leading experts.

You propose that we need an "expert-staffed review board".
Yet it is clear that we already have this, the review board
consists of the entire community of reading contributors and
the experts we have already attracted to the project.

Authorizing a "the review board says" or "As a representative
of the review board I say, therefore the issue is settled"
is a substantial deviation of the current project procedures
which are:  "If you cannot work productively without extended
edit wars with the other contributors then you should come to 
the mailing list and discuss it or stay away from these subjects
or face banning."

The latter shuts down persistent problems damaging to the
community.  The former shuts down effective participation.

Wikipedia is clear evidence that participation can drive
a successful project.  Nupedia (and possibly others) apparently
has yet to demonstrate that authority or *guidance* or 
*leadership* can deliver a quality project without the funds to 
pay for participation.

> 
> (6) It is possible, as a few people seem to think, that by attracting many
> experts *to Wikipedia* (and continuing to forget that Nupedia ever
> happened) will result in the sort of excellent quality I hope we'll
> achieve.  If that were to happen, I'd be delighted.  (I don't expect it to
> happen; see (9) below.  

Perhaps we should formulate some quantitative criteria for 
success and begin measuring our processes.  This has been
done to a certain extent, but if it is perceived as important
to the community for effective self management, there is a bit
more that could be done fairly easily.


But it wasn't my suggestion. My suggestion was for
> Wikipedians to get behind a new or newly revitalized project (such as
> Nupedia), officially independent of Wikipedia, that would be managed by
> experts.

Managed by expert managers or leading authorities in a variety
of arcane specialties?   I have worked with many specialists,
since they have been extremely focused on specific topics many
of them lack management skills typically developed via on the job 
experience which professional managers accumulate.

Why expect a leading metallurgist, acknowledged top in his field, 
to be good at assembling a presentation of metallurgy suitable for 
kindergartners through P'hds as a comprehensible, reliable reference 
source?  Why expect him/her to be good at recruiting, motivating,
training, and/or managing the diverse team of specialists in education, 
presentation, tech writing, web design, etc. needed to tackle such
a demanding multi-media multi medium project?

> 
> Roll out the red carpet.  Create a structure that will make the elite feel
> welcome to be involved in a *leadership* role.  Get universities involved,
> and major research institutions, and even businesses--just as is the case
> with the open source movement.

The elite in the open/free source movement earn their recognition
by coding and giving away useful software products and source code.
We have created a structure here where the elite participators are 
recognized and welcome.  Now if we can identify ways to avoid
overloading
the elite, while the rest of us improve a bit, and newcomer's are 
assimilated without undue aggravation, then we shall really 
have something.

Universities are involved.  Unless I am mistaken some of our
better credentialed contributing regulars worked for universities.
Bomis is involved by at least Mr. Wales philanthropy and unless
I am miskaken there are still some paid Bomis employees actively
contributing, whether on their own time or paid by Bomis or both
I am uncertain.

I do not know if any influence is present yet from research
institutions.  I used to work at Edwards AFB, which did some
leading edge telemetry processing and flight test in support
of experimental aircraft from time to time.   Indeed, much of
what I learned there regarding TQM and project management is
available to the community.

> 
> (This, by the way, doesn't mean that they would set the standards for
> *Wikipedia*.  I would strongly oppose that; Wikipedia should be
> self-managing as it always has been.  But Wikipedia articles are open
> content.  They might manage a different project that uses Wikipedia
> content, as is their right.  Wikipedia would hugely benefit if this
> happened.)

I am not certain I would quantify the benefit as huge.  Certainly
the credit for the work would be good PR.  It would seem about the
equivalent of a fork in terms of drawing off productive contributors.
Of course, if the effort drawn was concentrated with people valuing
credentials over actual content and sources for the "target" audience
to read, evaluate, and contribute back to; then it might be very 
beneficial in reducing the scorn to which newcomer's are 
occasionally subjected.

> 
> (7) Fred Bauder was right to point out that a lot of the people who could
> help *Wikipedia* most just won't put up with arguing with people who they
> think should be sitting down and taking notes.  A college professor who
> has spent his life studying X would, at least in many cases, find it
> absurd and ludicrous that he should have to argue with someone about X who
> has maybe had a college course on the subject and read a few books.
> There are exceptions, but they are *really* exceptions, and be grateful
> for them.  You might hate this attitude, but it's a fact of life.  The
> free stuff movement (how's that for a name) might be fantastic and
> wonderful, but that doesn't mean it'll magically change this fact.

Progress!  We are really delineating some of the fundamental issues
involved in this revolutionary and innovative community project now.

I agree.   Modern academics are completely out of touch with the old
style log, student and instructor approach to self educational 
opportunities that produced ancient scholars and prodigies.  A doctrine
of indoctrination has permeated U.S. institutions to the extent that
many professionally compensated scholars, educators, and specialists
feel comfortable with this resort to authority.   The problem, of
course, is that many people find it difficult to recover a more active
role in study, research, work, innovation, etc. after spending 20 
or 30 years keeping quiet and being indoctrinated.

Wikipedia breaks this mold and proposes to develop contributing
readers and reading contributors who verify the facts or the 
reasoning for themselves.   Unfortunately this potentially places
a large strain on busy, knowledgeable people; some of our best and
brightest.   We need better processes to alleviate this, not a
return to gullibility or religious embrace of opinions backed by
worshipped credentials.   Newton gets a lot of credit for revolutionary
scientific work.   There are also some allegations that he single
handedly slowed down science in the British empire by routinely 
blocking any idea that he did not agree with or for which he
could not take personal credit.  Good old Not Invented Here
Syndrome.

I think we should encourage our best and brightest (such as Jules)
to pace themselves a bit and develop better processes for keeping
inaccurate, unreliable material off the current pages served to
casual readers than overworking our dedicated and best collaborative
scholars.   6 Billion - 37 - 200 - 2000 - 4000 leaves aproximately
6 billion people to expose to this return to the old ways.
A student, a scholar, and a log ...  Actually billions of students,
millions (billions, assuming that no universal scholars exist) 
of emulation worthy examples, and an internet connection on demand 
between any two self chosen people, or people and forum, 
addressing the subject of choice.  

Perhaps MIT's announcement a year or two ago to commit to open
courseware freely available online should be reevaluated in the
context of our conversation to see if it provides any insight.
They do not propose to argue with the readers, merely to present
their easily convertible course materials online for easy, free,
access to any who wish to read them.   They do not invite the
internet accessible public to become critical thinkers and 
contributors, merely a reader.  Last time I checked they were
still largely vaporware, but some course materials are available
online.

Personally, I think Wikipedia is on to something bigger.  The original
goal still specificially articulated is to develop a deep, broad, 
reliable encyclopedia.  The chosen method embraced a new technology,
wiki, that was in itself a revolutionary idea.   What is the simplest
computer technology possible to implement to allow distributed
large scale collaboration via the internet?  The answer turned out
to be some scripts, a server, a database engine, and a simple text
user interface, Wiki.  The convolution of two goals threatens to provide
a miniature World Wide Web which is easily modifiable peer to peer.

Adding SVG to the capabilities really has possibilities.  Since
engineers are indoctrinated by society to love getting paid for
building things, instead of loving to design and build things.
It should be possible to continue to attract sporadic participation
here even if immediate forks spring up from the green space faction's
desire to save representative fragments of the Amazon rain forests 
via distributed R&D on technologies applciable to space settlements.
Most engineers will not rush to participate until success is
obvious and assured.

What will 6 billion people decide to do next when they get
affluent enough to ignore their leaders' *guidance* when
freely developing and sharing knowledge bases via installed
sunk capital infrastructure?

> 
> The free encyclopedia project--not Wikipedia, necessarily--needs these
> people.  

Substantiating evidence?
logical proof?

Needs which ones that we do not already have?

It's frankly a little silly to expect them to help us as long as
> we continue to be wide open to everyone (except "24" and Helga,
> perhaps...) and to follow the editing policies and practices that we all
> know and love.  

Actually I do not find partime participation a silly expectation.
I expect they will pace themselves and contribute effectively as 
they choose, when they choose, and in ways they choose.

For example:  Jules/April have twice in the last month notified the
mailing list that a couple contributors were refusing substantiate
their material in credible ways.   This resulted in some augmented
efforts by multiple people in verifying or deleting inaccurate
information.  Also resulted in some further modification and 
articulation of community policy.

It's much *less* silly to expect a number of them to join
> a free encyclopedia project advisory board of some sort, made up of
> leaders in all fields, that would set standards and procedures for the
> selection of *some free articles* (not to lead Wikipedia).  It's also
> quite possible many of them will want to get on board as active parts of
> the writing and vetting process--but on their own terms, not on Wikipedia.
> We've already seen some potential for this with Nupedia.  But I think we
> can do better, by getting behind the notion of a project led by, well,
> *real* experts.  Not me, but Jacques Barzun, or someone of his stature.
> Someone, or a group of people, that the best minds of the world can look
> to and say, "This is fantastic.  They want to do this?  I want to be part
> of it."

Perhaps.  I remain unconvinced because I have not identified
any clear arguments beyond *this is the status quo*.   The people
you wish to attract have it pretty good with the current status quo.
Why should there be wide attraction to revolutionary concepts within
their ranks?

I also fail to understand what weight you feel the consensus of the
Wikipedia community will carry with these people when you feel our
product, processes, and credentials are inferior to what they will
allegedly require for participation.

Again, the existing participation here at Wikipedia seems to contradict
this assertion.  24/200 is over ten percent.   24/2000 is over 1
percent.
What percent of the general internet population have credentials
documenting the expertise you desire?

Wikipedia is already sorting the "creme".  Regular repeat 
contributors are learning to collaborate respectfully and
effectively.   Methods and means of reducing workload and
harassment of our best contributers also seem to be evolving.  

> 
> That's how academics and scientists think, hate it or not.  But it *is*
> how they think.  Hard-headed problem-solvers will devise ways to work with
> it, as a constraint.

Innovative problem solvers will modify the constraints.

I think this has already occurred.  I have been proposing
perceived incremental improvements, not contending that the
existing process is broke.

> 
> (8) A few people think I misunderstand the source of open source's
> success.

> 
> Similarly, Karl J., I am sure the final decisions about what to officially
> release are made as you say they are (by whatever experts are at hand, not
> by the world's greatest expert about the thing).  It so happens, though,
> that as the movement has growed in stature, those people who make the
> decisions really *are* software experts.  If I'm wrong, please supply me
> with an example.  

Browse sourceforge.   The free software movements source of 
success is its evolutionary approach.   Release early and often.
Reuse, innovate, whatever.   If you cannot get along, fork.
The best fork wins.  There are a lot of losers at sourceforge.
So what?  It is the stuff that gets kept and used that matters.

You are attempting to argue that we must start with experts.

I am arguing that if Wikipedia is alive in ten or twenty 
years it will have helped develop many of its own experts.

How could the leaders of kernel releases, GNOME, etc.,
> fail to be experts in what they do?  The success of their projects is
> sufficient evidence.  This doesn't contradict anything I said, moreover.
> 

This circular argument provides no support for your assertion
that we simply must start with experts to attract expertise.

Many or most of the experts you cite developed much of their 
expertise within their projects as they successfully evolved them.

> The disanalogy between software and encyclopedia article writing is simply
> that software has to work.  It has to do what it is supposed to do.  As
> software grows in sophistication, this requires huge amounts of expertise.
> But encyclopedia articles do not work or fail to work; still, very many of
> them *do* require the attention, at *some* point, of an expert, in order
> for anyone to be able to trust them reasonably.

The free software creedo is release early and often.  This means
that it arguably does not work!  The users help fix it.

Demonstration is easy.  Go to sourceforge and search any
category of interest.   Download it and attempt to get it
to work.  Much of it will not even compile.   Much of it is
extremely buggy.   There is a pretty clear correlation that
the better it works at doing something useful the more developers
and users the project tends to have.  This begins a positive
feedback loop until its quality delivered is good enough to
satisfy most of its users, at which point participation 
stabilizes or falls off.

Encyclopedia articles clearly do fail or not fail.  Each failure
is an invitation to an existing contributor or a new reader to
make a minor adjustment.  The human brain is the best computer
design on our planet (by our standards) and each of our readers
in the near term has one applied to assessment of our material.

Perhaps we should test an advertising campaign on the front 
page similar to the "Edit any page, boldly" focus earlier in
the project.  "Please make a comment on a talk page, your feedback
is appreciated and critical for continued content improvement."

> 
> (9) Now to address a point that at least three people made.  If Wikipedia
> develops by itself, without any association with any sort of expert-
> controlled approval mechanism, to the point where it is used regularly by
> librarians and referred to as a good research source by college
> professors, I would take that as prima facie proof that a *lot* of experts
> are involved in Wikipedia.  

A tautology.  If experts are reading or referring then clearly
they are involved with the project, even if they are not the
intended target market.

But this is precisely what I predict will not
> happen.  

However, the only evidence that I have detected so far
is based upon Academia's irrational dependence on certification
and credentials rather than evaluation (and improvement or
constructive comment if possible) of the actual content.

The argument seems to be:

P1  The status quo is that credentials 
are respected, confer respect and attract respected colleagues.

P2  Wikipedia can not be expected to change this by itself.

P3  Many experts (but not all) have credentials and are respected.

Conclusion:  The Wikipedia community should take immediate
and dramatic action to recruit credentialed and respected
experts to *guide* *the free encyclopedia movement*.

Personally I do not see how this follows.  Particularly
given the fact that we have some local experts in some
subjects and participation seems to be on the rise.

<snip>

> Axel and Lee both opined that Wikipedia might be able attract experts to
> lead it (hopefully not in an official capacity but due to proper respect
> to their expertise in their areas of expertise) 

Hopefully their expertise will allow them to demonstrate the
correctness of their position to open minded skeptics.  This
should indeed build local respect for their abilities.

This would seem to imply first participation, then emergent
leadership.

Your argument seems to be that without a priori respect no
expertise can be attracted.  The existing community would
seem to be adequate proof that this is not the case locally.

all on its own, due to the
> (eventual) strength of its material.  Bootstrapping, as many people have
> observed.
> 
> I'm willing to admit that I could be wrong; I don't have a crystal ball.
> But, looking at Wikipedia's contents now and comparing it to what I recall
> from times past, I do have to say that I'm worried.  I don't think that in
> terms of quality, overall, it's getting that much better.  

Any quantitative or objective evidence?

But I also
> admit the project is still very young and no trends can be reliably
> predicted.  

I disagree.  Sufficient data is available or could be collected 
to reliably project some trends.  What reliability do you 
require?  Within ten percent over the next 6 months?  Confident 
of the sign of linear or exponential growth terms?  Identification
of gain or loss factors?

Notice that I do not claim I could collect the data or
create the projections in isolation.  Merely that the
community could reliably predict some trends if it wished.

That doesn't stop me from being worried, and I think you
> should be too.  There's nothing utterly magical about the Wikipedia
> formula that *necessitates* that articles *on the whole* will not reach a
> level of mediocrity they never excel *on the whole*.

Control engineering is a fairly developed reliable
field.  Fundamental approaches have been shown to work
well both analytically and empirically with predictable
results and reliable design methods.

Human systems are much more chaotic than industrial
processes.  With that caveat noted I would say that we 
seem to have effective community processes, procedures,
and culture that tend to establish two critical 
feedback processes in a massively random parallel
fashion.

1.  Friendly dialogue between contributors tends to
improve the future contributions.

2.  Random, purposeful, and chaotic editing seems
predominantly to incrementally improve the local edited 
content.

Further, with rare exceptions, when and where diminishing 
returns set in, people seem to branch out or find additional 
interests or other people to collaborate with to the limit
of their willingness to participate.

Your statement above seems to rely on the assumption that
new random contributors do not learn to apply editorial
judgement and that therefore future improvements beyond
the *mediocre* *must* come from recruiting from a different
pool of contributors with a higher credential level.

Currently new contributors are self selected, presumably
because they see some potential in the project.  Surely
these self selected enthusiasts are more likely to apply
the effort to learn new methods required by the new medium,
than stodgy established authorities unwilling to interact
on a peer to peer basis with the other community members?

> 
> Moreover, there's a reason to think far too many experts won't ever give
> Wikipedia the attention it needs: it's just not a "form of life" that
> they're interested in and used to.  It's important that we properly come
> to grips with this fact.

Evolution does not have to be harsh.   We do not need to
assassinate or convert inattentive experts, merely ignore them.  
As  the Wikipedia improves it is likely to attract sufficient
attention to keep improving.  As it improves it will eventually
attract the notice of even well isolated academic giants.

It is important that we do not modify a working process,
project, or community into something which does not work.
That way lies "The Fact Factory" or oblivion.

> 
> My experience with Nupedia makes me strongly suspect that the ablest
> possible contributors to the open encyclopedia project need their own
> project with their own rules, and that it's unwise to expect most
> academics and professionals anyway (I dealt with many dozens on Nupedia)
> to be interested in joining a wiki and contributing in that fashion.

So the few we expect to attract should be placed in 
authority or leadership positions?

Axel, Jules, April, Daniel, and others locally seem to be 
successfully influencing the community due to their track 
record of effective participation.   Interestingly enough
even "24" seems to have exercised some influence, despite
anonymity and an abrasive tendency when on the defensive.

> 
> If Wikipedia gets behind the notion, it'll happen!
> 

What exactly are you proposing that the Wikipedia community
or mailing list do to "get behind the notion"?

Let me take another stab at expressing my current mis-understanding.

Nupedia has a paid professional staff that has atttempted to
setup procedures and policy, develop software, and recruit leading 
academics to the vision of creating the best encyclopedia ever.  
Presumably ideas from the participating academics/experts regarding 
how to organize the project, create the material, review it, modify 
it, publish, etc. have been discussed (ad nauseum?) and some 
overall consensus or decision implemented, at least partially.

Meanwhile, sometime during this process an idea occurred 
(between you and an acquaintenance) and Mr. Wales {perhaps 
advised by other professional staff} agreed to fund the
experiment with an open wiki, Wikipedia ... the afterthought.

Now the randomly attracted community of volunteers (seeded
by some experts and paid professional effort from Bomis) has
managed to self organize, is successfully creating content,
and appears to be growing and/or improving slightly.
Multiple views and success criteria exist but everybody still
contributing seems to agree that progress of some sort is 
occurring.

You contend that to achieve maximum success, Wikipedia needs
*guidance* or *leadership* from the same pool of potential
participants from which Nupedia's initial recruiting efforts
were aimed at.  Otherwise we (the entire free encyclopedia
effort) are doomed to mediocrity.

I think this is a premature conclusion.  

More specifically, there has been little formal analysis, 
specification, or agreement regarding actual Wikipedia processes 
to date. The ensemble is clearly working but it is made of many
different approaches and peoples preferences.  It is not
precisely clear what percentage of the community is using
which policies or customs.  It is not precisely clear even
what rough percentage of the newcomer's, passive readers,
or infrequent tweakers even bother to read the orientation
material prior to browsing the site.  It is clear that google
is delivering hits and that some newcomer's will occasionally
become contributors.  The community and product utility for
initial audiences appears to be growing.

To state conclusively that the existing process is infeasible
(or has specific limits to specific quality or success criteria
which are attainable) would seem to require a decent understanding 
of the existing system characteristics.

Mike Irwin