[Wikipedia-l] The "Casio Effect"

[Michael R. Irwin]

lcrocker at nupedia.com wrote:
> 
> >>>>[Re: having experts write reviews of Wiki articles]
> >>Such reviews would be themselves fully credited and not
> >>editable, and attached to the article they describe, but the
> >>subject article itself would remain fully editable.
> 
> >Two good points about this idea strike me immediately:
> >
> >* there's no forking of articles -- no concurrent versions
> >* there's a good chance that experts will dive in and make
> >  improvements to the Wikipedia articles they have reviewed :-)
> 
> ...but they aren't _required_ to do so, so there's no bottleneck,
> and the rest of us can edit /them/ (in the main articles, not
> their reviews) if they get out of line.  And those whose egos get
> bent out of shape by amateurs editing their work can leave in a
> huff, and we've still got their complete review, dated and signed,
> with their views.  The thick-skinned ones will remain, and those
> are the ones we want anyway.
> 
> But the main thing I like about this idea is that it is /simple/.
> It doesn't require a lot of software, a lot bureaucracy, three or
> four levels of article approval, voting systems, or any of that
> nonsense.  It's just a simple, clean, obvious way for an expert to
> say "here's what I think" in a way that can improve articles
> without interfering too much with the existing process.

I am wary of this approach.  It holds the "experts" up
on a pedastal.   Their material or comments are untouchable
and essentially unrebuttable.

We could easily double or triple our growth in experts reviewing 
with no further participation while decimating or worse our
active community participation or stunting our participation
growth of less credentialed participation.

If this approach is chosen to experiment with, I would propose
that we add the review pages or a page of links to reviews and
allow any account holder to publish the critiques.  The critiquer
can place what ever background information or credentials they
feel appropriate on their personal page.  The personal pages
could be protected and administratively overridden if fraud is
alleged and substantiated.

It might also be a way of allowing the presentation of obscure
or non NPOV material without compromising the core articles.

regards,
Mike Irwin