[Wikipedia-l] Re: Do we really need a Sifter project?

[Daniel Mayer]

Erik wrote:
>In my opinion, university degrees are no guarantee 
>for quality. I've seen so many uninspiring mediocre 
>academics (not all of them are like that of course) 
>that it makes me question todays education system. 

Oh I agree - One thing I've found out while working on Wikipedia is that my 
college professors are far from all knowing or neutral. Same goes for my 
college textbooks. The Wikipedia process has, on a regular basis, greatly 
improved upon my knowledge of many different subjects. 

>Another point: let us say several tens of thousands of 
>articles qualify for "Wikipedia Professional". The screening
>will be a huge undertaking, but it can be done. But after that, 
>how often will people be willing to go through the whole 
>certification process again and again in order to approve 
>possibly small additions and corrections?

The same thing can be argued for free software; Who is going to go through the 
polishing and performance testing of free software so that it is reasonably 
safe and easy to use for the user? And yet there are many GNU/Linux 
distributions that use professional programmers to do just that. 

>I am not against freezing articles to deal with random 
>troll droppings. I am vehemently against an elitist approach. 
>It blows the whole concept.

But the reality of the world we live in is that a great many people will not 
let you into the door of an interview without certain pieces of paper 
indicating you successfully completed some type of process. This is also a 
major criticism of Wikipedia; that articles are not necessarily checked by 
"experts" and therefore they should not be trusted.

As I have already indicated I think this is flawed reasoning - but it still is 
a very widely-held viewpoint.

So I think it would be useful to have a Nupedia stamp of approval on selected 
Wikipedia content. That satisfies the critics and is one more way to further 
improve Wikipedia.

That's all - the last thing I am is an elitist; I am, above all else, a 
pragmatist. 

>Wikipedia is a hobby, even experts want to take 
>a break from their daily work every now and then, 
>and Wikipedia provides this. 

Yes I agree - I am, for example, a trained biologist and yet my contributions 
to the history, chemistry and geology sections far outshine my contributions 
to biology. It is fun to learn new things. But that is about the article 
creation process - I would consider my duty as a Nupedian to check 
biology-related articles so that people in the very common elitist mindset 
can think it is safe to use those articles. 

So I guess I'm being pragmatic (wanting our content to be viewed by the 
largest possible audience) while you and others are being idealistic (wanting 
to rebel against the whole notion of the elitist mindset).

Both views are valid and have their pros and cons. 

-- Daniel Mayer (aka mav)