Carcharoth wrote:
On Sun, Apr 18, 2010 at 4:08 PM, Carl (CBM)
<cbm.wikipedia(a)gmail.com> wrote:
<snip>
I would be much more interested in a system for
expert refereeing than
the present FA system. To some extent, the current "peer review"
process can already be used for this, but I don't expect to see a real
change in this direction until the successor to Wikipedia.
<snip>
2) Sometimes the article will be savaged by external
reviewers who
will know more about the breadth and depth of available sources, and
will (in many cases correctly) point out that the article (although
superficially good at first glance) doesn't really use the right
sources, or the existing sources in the right way.
Yes, that seems plausible. Encyclopedia articles are not a form really
designed for the rigours of serious peer review (the typical five years
to a doctorate versus maybe 15 hours to write a long piece from scratch
- it's not a fair fight). I wonder if it is quite the right point,
though. Judging by problems I hit from time to time - [[tensor]] is a
current problem child - the real shortage is "article doctors" rather
than "critics". The Holy Grail here is a topic expert who also knows
enough about the (routine, I'd say) basic procedures of upgrading
articles by restructuring and copyediting. It is so common for
apparently serious problems to be lightly disguised writing issues - a
small misconception mixed in with things that can be expressed much better.
Charles