[Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?

Tue Sep 21 13:41:39 UTC 2010

In a message dated 9/21/2010 12:11:09 AM Pacific Daylight Time, 
peter.damian at btinternet.com writes:

> I brought it up because Johnson was insisting that someone 
> without formal training in the humanities could write an article just as 
> well as someone with formal training.

Peter I'm finding it hard to comprehend why you fail to understand my 
meaning so often.
I never stated nor even insinuated that "someone without formal training in 
the humanities could write an article just as well as someone with formal 
training."

I would point out however that I think you mean "in their field" as well, 
since a person with "formal training in the humanities" whatever you think 
that implies, could not write an article on nuclear interactions as well as 
someone with "formal training in nuclear science".  Or wait... perhaps they 
could, but that's another point isn't it?

What I actually stated or implied was that any editor could *modify* an 
existing article, by adding details which are not in it, or editing the copy 
for style, tense, usage.  Fixing spelling errors, and so on.  Any editor can 
modify an article, any editor can create a stub article.

Editors with no real comprehension of what wider scope an article might 
have, can still spot articles which seem to be written in a flowery or 
aggressive style.  That takes no "formal training in the humanities".  Rather it 
takes a sense of logic, balance, flow.  Which applies to all writing, not just 
writing on the humanities.

It's hardly fair for you to pick at an article that I was in the middle of 
updating, with bits and pieces that I found here and there, in a rather 
haphazard way, as is my wont when I'm *researching*, and then declare that I 
don't know how to write.  (How's that for a run-on sentence, Ma?)

But Peter, this is not about *me*, this is about the project, which has 
rejected, and will continue to reject, the concept that experts get a "pass" on 
citing their sources :)~~~  No one gets a pass, if that pisses off some 
experts, then those are exactly the sort of trouble makers we do not want.

Will Johnson