[Wikipedia-l] An idea

[Sj]

On 5/24/05, Chad Perrin <perrin at apotheon.com> wrote:
> On Tue, May 24, 2005 at 08:04:02PM +0200, Angela wrote:
> > On 5/24/05, Jimmy Wales <jwales at wikia.com> wrote:
> > > People could *optionally* go through a process to confirm
> > > their credentials.  When you do this, a small icon appears by your name
> > > in the edit history, and when you click on it, you get to a new tab of
> > > the user page, which contains a list of the confirmed credentials.
> 
> The other is simply that Wikipedia, among other things, is a fantastic
> demonstration of a particular model of aggregate authorship (the wiki);
> it is, in fact, sort of the perfect poster-boy for that model, and its
> reputation depends to a large extent on the public perception of that
> model's strengths and legitimacy.  There's a very symbiotic relationship
> between Wikipedia's reputation and the reputation of the wiki in
> general.  If one falters significantly, the other can as well.

What Chad said.  Wikipedia will be recognized as an unparallelled
reference work soon enough, without anyone apologizing for its muddy
openness.  And I think that we will see small scalable gains by
improving the way we recognize excellence and expertise in
subject-areas -- say, by avoiding the initial stages of certain edit
wars, by improving the efficiency of RC-patrol, watchlist-patrol, and
article/subject reviewing.  But it seems far more interesting to me to
emphasize that our success emerged from the mud and with its help,
than to assure everyone that the mud can be washed off.

It isn't clear to me that the project would have become such a success
/without/ contributions from dedicated kooks, eccentrics, trolls, and
people who are just plain misguided in their convictions.  Explicitly
focusing on credentials might well reduce contribution; even in its
absence, the most common reason my brilliant iconoclastic US friends
give me for not writing about <whatever they're reading / studying> in
Wikipedia is that they are "no expert" on the subject.

--SJ