[Foundation-l] Fwd: Re: [VereinDE-l] Bericht zur Verleihung der Zedler-Medaille und Academy

Sat Nov 27 17:12:33 UTC 2010

On Sat, Nov 27, 2010 at 15:32, Henning Schlottmann
<h.schlottmann at gmx.net> wrote:
> On 27.11.2010 01:41, Milos Rancic wrote:
>
>> In other words, our recruitment base are not well formed scientists,
>> but high school students who are interested in Wikipedia (and other
>> Wikimedia projects) per se. After five years on project, a former high
>> school student -- probably a university student or even a fresh
>> employee -- is much more experienced encyclopedist than any regular
>> scientist who spent his life in research. Simply, a couple of years of
>> daily dealing with various encyclopedic articles creates an expert in
>> encyclopedistics.
>
> I do not agree here. High school (and most undergraduate college
> students as well) lack the access to scientific literature and/or the
> experience to use it to compile NPOV descriptions. OTOH most graduate
> students, young professionals and scientists lack the time and the focus
> to contribute regularly. In this part of life, they are building a
> family and a career.
>
> The most important base for recruiting should be retired professionals,
> teachers, scientists. They have the background and the time. Many will
> like the intellectual challenge and enjoy to pass on their experience.
>
> High school students are our readers, don't confuse them with our autors.

We already have a couple of generations of former high school students
trained to be encyclopedists. And those who stayed with us are among
the best ones. On the planet. I witnessed so many times that a
university student with a couple of years of expertise has superior
encyclopedic methods in comparison to many experts.

Unfortunately, retired experts have to be much more extraordinary than
high schools students to be incorporated into the Wikimedia culture.
Good knowledge of computers and good nerves obviously make wider gaps
than learning policies and encyclopedic and [hopefully] scientific
methods.

Incorporating new generations into the community is painful task. But
we don't have other options.

Encyclopedic work is like any other. It needs a lot of practice to be
mastered. And there is no better place on Earth to master it than
Wikipedia.

Ideally, encyclopedists shouldn't be experts in particular fields, but
experts in writing encyclopedia: those who are able to compile known
facts into readable articles, according to the encyclopedic rules.