[WikiEN-l] Rules, expertise, and encyclopedic standards

Sun Mar 6 14:48:45 UTC 2005

Abe Sokolov:

>> My suggestion on Wikipedia:Forum for
> > Encyclopedic Standards was an alternative arbitration committee with
public
> > credibility, composed of qualified encyclopedists who have the calhones
not
> > to edit anonymously.

slimvirgin:

> Exactly right, and I can't think of a single reason that anyone would
> want to oppose this. It wouldn't prioritize content over process, but
> would simply put the two on a par, which is the right approach because
> the two are inextricably linked. The content-related policies are
> already in place; all we need is a committee able and willing to
> enforce them.

Hmm. 'What Wikipedia needs more than anything else is a movement of genuine
editors to insist on quality control and the weeding out of
non-encyclopaedic editors.' (From WP:FES.)

If I have had reservations about the thing, that just about sums it up.
It's the old joke about "I supported this until I heard X speak in favour of
the proposal".

I don't doubt that things have moved on, since I first decided to suspend
judgement on this structure.  I chose instead to nail my flag to the
Systemic Bias thing (for all the good it did that or me).

I'm certainly bothered by the idea that someone with access to an academic
library will be able to trump someone without, more-or-less routinely, in a
citation arms race.  That is obviously not what enforcing content-related
policies should be.  I feel 'no original research' is OK as subordinate to
NPOV; 'cite sources' ought really to be used mostly to unblock logjams in
discussion.  There is after all plenty of wrong-headed stuff in the academic
literature.

Enforcement is a tricky area for WP.  Basically we have little of it.  As
far as page content is concerned my past suggestion has been pendulum
arbitration and periods of page protection, in the most vexed cases.

Charles