Moink makes a good point. I've been involved with both disciplines (trained in engineering but doing research in media studies), which is probably why I have unusual views on this.
However, I believe the proposal to get more academics involved goes the wrong way - instead of modifying Wikipedia processes to be attractive to the "academic methods", it should be the other way around. Find ways to get traditional academic folks to contribute using the "wisdom of crowds" method. One way might be to be able to conveniently email a link to an article to someone, and say "This article could use your expertise, could you help us out?" Academics are not averse to contributing to encyclopedias - they are asked to do so quite often.
Also, what Abe describes would likely be incompatible with the "no original research" policy we've had for a while. Rather, Wikipedia (and most encyclopedias) are secondary source works, not primary battlegrounds for ideas.
-Andrew (User:Fuzheado)
On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 13:49:50 -0400, moink theresa.robinson@gmail.com wrote:
On Fri, 30 Jul 2004 15:37:55 +1000, Tim Starling ts4294967296@hotmail.com wrote:
Abe wrote:
"Academia" is the name for a huge institutionalized process of peer review. Wikipedia is peer review on steroids, so you'd think that academics would be clamoring to contribute to Wikipedia, especially since academia and Wikipedia both love free expression and open discourse. The difference is, academia is peer review with competition for prestige and resources, and Wikipedia is not.
I don't know what academia you're familiar with, but where I'm from, I'm told not to publish any source code for fear of losing competitive advantage, and to patent anything that looks potentially useful via the spin-off company. A spin-off company which doesn't do anything, it just owns patents and spends large amounts of money "maintaining" them. Publishing results is OK as long as everyone knows which fabulous world-class group produced them.
This is primarily a result of IP protection and commercialisation being seen as important for our national interests, and therefore an important part of deciding how to allocate Federal research grants.
Abe's version is more prevalent in the humanities, while Tim's version more accurately reflects the sciences, and in particular, engineering.
moink
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