[Wikipedia-l] Proposal: Introduce Editor Responsibilities?

Peter Gervai grin at tolna.net
Fri Dec 12 13:20:13 UTC 2003


On Wed, Dec 10, 2003 at 03:46:39PM +0100, Andre Engels wrote:

> I'm not so sure about those 'checks and balances' of the wiki model. I
> know one article where I strongly feel that it is not NPOV because it
> presents the ideas of one historian as if they are established fact. But
> I don't dare get into a discussion or edit war about it, because it also
> seems clear that the person who put it there is more knowledgeable
> about the subject than me - and probably more knowledgeable than any
> other Wikipedian.

Maybe we do it differently. If I would meet such a problem I would do as I
usually do: creating a new section titled "other theories" or anything like
that, and there I would describe other, alternative or opposing theories. It
doesn't hurt the "official" theory but give possibly useful information. The
"knowledgeable" person have to (and should, anyway) accept is.

> I do intend
> it to say that the wiki model also is no panacea.

I am sure we all are aware of that. It's just that we think the wiki model
is probably as good as others, or even better. Nothing's said about its
absolute correctness I believe. (Btw even "official" "scientific" sources
contain bullshit sometimes. Even books. :) I just love [[Erzsebet Bathory]] (or
like that) article which is most probably completely based on work of fiction
providing it as facts. It has been covered by many books. Still, books
doesn't create facts. Or at least OTHER sources think so.)

> I guess I would like to see something like editors for an article,
> but in a more Wiki-like manner - that is, make it easier to become
> an editor, and also editors do not approve or disapprove edits, but
> only judge their value and/or that of the resulting article. This
> judgement could then be shown somewhere, either on the article page
> itself or on its edit page. Pages with high scores could be shown
> on some kind of "showcase" page, and would be more likely to get
> into version 1 than would be the case based on the importance of
> the subject alone, pages with low scores could be candidates for a
> full rewrite instead of the normal piecewise editing.

I don't really like this vision. 

Maybe I can imagine a system where people can specify their background (they
can, user: pages) and vote on correctness of the article (oh, you say they
can, using talk:). 

Oh, so it's already possible without castrating the wikiwiki concept? Great.
It's a communication issue then.

grin

ps: I hereby state myself as the greatest living authority on milk of
Betelgeusean Spot Cowlettes. So I can reject your additions on that article.
You may write an appeal to devnull at wikibuerocrazy.com. :-)



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