[Wikipedia-l] $6,000 goal reached!

Sun Oct 12 16:03:27 UTC 2003

> From: "Andrew Lih" <alih at hku.hk>
> Subject: RE: [Wikipedia-l] $6,000 goal reached!
>
> Perhaps I'm completely cynical, but the variety of
> suggestions about
> hiring experts to keep watch, or college professors,
> or
> "known-neutral-and-knowledgeable" folks is a bit
> troubling and un-Wiki.
> (And for those who know what I do for a living will
> find it ironic. :) 
> 
> If this route is considered, we should ensure no
> greater authority will
> be conferred upon this class of contributors.  So
> far, the suggestions
> by Delerium and Mav have been innocent enough, but
> could be dangerous if
> it becomes related to ownership, entitlement or
> keeper-status of certain
> topics.  

I do not know what you do for a living :-)
But I feel equally troubled by this. 
There are quite a bunch of "professionals" among us,
and it is certainly clear that being professionals do
not prevent bias for example. 
So not only is it sort of putting again knowledge in
the arms of academics, but also fooling us in the idea
these academics are perfectly neutral.

Similarly, some french wants to press CD for
demonstration purpose to precisely these
professionals, for them to indicate to us where typo
is wrong, which fields are not covered enough, which
articles contain mistakes and so on.

I find this troubling and slightly insulting. 

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