----- Original Message ----- From: "Noein" <[email protected]> To: "Wikimedia Foundation Mailing List" <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, October 04, 2010 5:47 PM Subject: Re: [Foundation-l] Has Wikipedia changed since 2005?
> Note, Peter, that I am not rejecting the value of your knowledge, your > critics about quality of articles or your proposals. I only disagree > about your model of communication of knowledge for wikipedia. I don't care about models of communication, unless they produce results. If the current process were producing articles that belonged to a comprehensive and reliable reference work, I don't mind. I was fascinated with the Wikipedia model when it first came out (I have been regularly editing since early 2003) and I often defend it to the unbelievers. It's a model that works fantastically well for certain things. But for other things, it does not produce results.Under any criterion, some of the articles in the philosophy section are truly awful. Also I'm not sure whether you are suggesting that the "academic" criterion for quality is somehow flawed, and that if only people like me would learn to put on the right spectacles, we would see that they are in fact good? Or not? Well in any case, Wikipedia's own grading system suggests there is a problem. This is the 3rd time I have posted this. http://toolserver.org/~enwp10/bin/list2.fcgi?run=yes&projecta=Philosophy&namespace=0&pagename=&quality=&importance=&score=&limit=100&offset=1&sorta=Importance&sortb=Quality I would quarrel with the number of 'top' importance articles. I think the number should be more like 100, in line with other disciplines where Wikipedia is 'good'. But I generally agree with the quality assessment. The depressing fact is that articles like 'ancient philosophy' or 'pre-socratic philosophy' are start-class, the article about the subject itself is 'C' as is the article about one of the greatest philosophers of the tradition (Plato). >>This social acceptance (or credentials if you prefer) has a weak >>epistemological value.[1] It's only convincing for the people of your own >>circle - whether they're right or wrong is of no relevance Citation please. All my experience suggests that specialists write better articles than non-specialists. Or to qualify: the typical writer of a 'good' article on Wikipedia is someone who has formal training in the subject but somehow missed getting an academic post. Or who is a postgraduate student looking to sharpen up their writing skills. The few 'good' philosophy articles were written by User:Lacatosias, who falls exactly into that category. Also it's not credentials I look for. I despise credentials. I look for a clear writing style, elegance and economy of expression, logical and evidenced support of views. This is not a credentialled or elitist thing. Anyone can develop these skills. But typically the process of natural selection means that formally-trained editors are more likely to have these skills than not. In summary, the objective of the project is to produce a reliable and comprehensive reference source. Everything else should be subordinate to that goal. Wikipedia is not some gigantic social engineering project. _______________________________________________ foundation-l mailing list [email protected] Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/foundation-l
