[WikiEN-l] Citizendium

Mon Sep 18 16:48:22 UTC 2006

Delirium wrote:
> I think this may actually be a strength of Wikipedia---expert idiots, in 
> my experience, are the most likely to be offended that they aren't being 
> given proper deference as experts, and so avoid Wikipedia.  (Of course, 
> not all---or even most---experts who avoid Wikipedia are idiots, but the 
> credential-waving type do consistently avoid it.)
>   

I should add that I don't disagree it's a problem that many of the 
non-idiot sort of experts also avoid Wikipedia.  I think the strong and 
still quite recent shift towards verifiability will go some way towards 
addressing that problem---experts have an inherent advantage on the new 
playing field, because they can pull up citations much more easily than 
an uninformed bullshitter can.  It doesn't solve all problems, but it's 
a step in the right direction.

Judicious organization in Wikiprojects might help also.  Many experts 
are willing to get right down into the dirty work of editing the 
encyclopedia and interacting on talk pages, but some who don't want to 
get into that might be willing to offer indirect guidance to 
participants in various Wikiprojects about what they think should be 
done, and let others take care of the implementation.

-Mark